Beyond Gridlock CLIMATE

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Beyond Gridlock
Michael P. Vandenbergh* & Jonathan A. Gilligan**
Introduction .............................................................................. 218
I. Urgency ............................................................................... 226
A. Climate Targets .............................................................. 227
B. Private Governance Wedge ............................................ 231
II. Barriers ............................................................................... 233
A. National Legislation ....................................................... 234
B. International Agreement ................................................ 237
C. Other Options ................................................................. 239
III.Private Governance ........................................................... 242
A. Model of Private Climate Governance Drivers ............. 243
i. Technical Potential ...................................................... 243
ii. Behavioral Plasticity ................................................... 244
iii.Policy Plasticity ........................................................... 251
B. Motivating Action ........................................................... 256
i. Private Climate Prediction Market ............................ 256
ii. Private Climate Legacy Registry ................................ 258
IV.Corporate and Household Emissions ................................. 260
A. Corporate Emissions....................................................... 260
i. Sector-Specific Initiatives ........................................... 261
*
David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law, Director, Climate Change
Research Network, and Co-Director, Energy, Environment and Land Use Program,
Vanderbilt University Law School. For comments on the initiatives included in the
private climate governance strategy, the authors thank the participants at workshops
at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University, the Environmental Science and Policy
Program at Michigan State University, the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University,
and the Private Governance Workshop at Vanderbilt University. Linda Breggin, Mark
Cohen, Paul Edelman, Andy Mims, Ed Rubin, J.B. Ruhl, Kevin Stack, and Alan
Wiseman provided helpful insights. Daniel Raimi provided research support on energy
policy issues, and Lorraine Baer, Nicholas Brill, Emily Burns, Leland Frost, Janelle
Geddes, Travis Gray, Kimberly Huey, Sara Jane McMahon, and Amanda Nguyen
provided research support on other aspects of the Article.
**
Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and
Associate Director for Research, Climate Change Research Network, Vanderbilt
University.
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ii. Carbon Disclosure ....................................................... 262

a. Corporate Carbon Footprints .................................. 262
b. Investor and Lender Carbon Footprints ................. 264
c. Project Carbon Footprints ....................................... 265
d. Product Carbon Footprints ...................................... 267
iii.Supply Chain Contracting .......................................... 269
a. Developed Countries ................................................ 270
b. Developing Countries ............................................... 273
iv.Benefit Corporations ................................................... 275
v. Magnitude .................................................................... 276
B. Households ...................................................................... 278
i. Behavioral Wedge ........................................................ 279
ii. Myth Busting ............................................................... 283
iii.Home Energy Disclosure ............................................. 285
iv.Immediate Feedback ................................................... 288
v. Employee Programs..................................................... 291
vi.Magnitude .................................................................... 293
C. Aggregate Effects ............................................................ 294
V. Conceptual Hurdles ............................................................. 295
A. Panacea Bias ................................................................... 295
B. Spillover Bias .................................................................. 297
C. Concrete Steps ................................................................ 300
VI.Conclusion ........................................................................... 302
INTRODUCTION
Private climate governance can achieve major greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions reductions while governments are in
gridlock.1 Despite the optimism that emerged from the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, almost a quarter
century later the federal legislative process and international
climate negotiations are years from a comprehensive response.
Yet Microsoft, Google and many other companies have
committed to become carbon neutral.2 Wal-Mart has partnered
with the Environmental Defense Fund to secure 20 million tons
1. In this Article, GHG and carbon are used interchangeably to mean the six
greenhouse gases that are the principal drivers of anthropogenic climate change.
These are often expressed in the form of carbon dioxide equivalents or CO2e. When
referring to one of the six GHGs, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), the Article uses the
specific term.
2. For a discussion of these private initiatives, see infra Parts III.B and IV.
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of GHG emissions reductions from its suppliers around the

world, an amount equal to almost half the emissions from the
US iron and steel industry. Investors holding roughly $90
trillion in assets have pressured large corporations to disclose
and reduce their carbon footprints, and participating
companies report having reduced emissions by an amount
equal to a major emitting nation. Private forest certification
programs have taken steps to reduce the GHG emissions from
deforestation. Household carbon regulation is off the table in
many countries, but private advocacy groups and corporations
have reduced household emissions through home energy
disclosure, eco-driving campaigns, employee programs,
voluntary carbon offsets, and other initiatives.
Private environmental governance arises when private
organizations perform traditionally governmental functions,
including reducing negative externalities and managing public
goods or common pool resources.3
Policy analysis often
assumes that when significant negative externalities exist and
property rights are poorly defined, as is the case for GHGs, the
only feasible remedies are either massive government
intervention (a Hobbesian Leviathan) or a Coasian assignment
of easily enforceable property rights.4 But in 2009, Elinor
Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in economics for showing that
a broad array of other governance schemes, including private
governance, can and do succeed.5
The emergence of private governance suggests the need to
reconsider the choices typically included in comparative
institutional analysis. The great contribution of comparative
institutional analysis is to force analysts to ask a seemingly
obvious but often overlooked question: as compared to what?
The standard approach compares the relative merits of three
institutions: markets, the political branches of government,
3. See Michael P. Vandenbergh, Private Environmental Governance, 99 CORNELL L.

REV. 129, 13437 (2013); Michael P. Vandenbergh, The Private Life of Public Law, 105
COLUM. L. REV. 2029 (2005).
4. ELINOR OSTROM, GOVERNING THE COMMONS 813 (1990) (noting the
presumption that an external Leviathan is necessary to avoid tragedies of the
commons or that the establishment of full property rights is necessary).
5. Id. at 1521 (noting that private organizations frequently manage similar
problems with contracts enforced by private arbitrators and monitors).
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and courts.6 In the last two decades, an extensive literature

has demonstrated that the political branches of government do
not function in isolation from markets, and thus the
comparison cannot just be among the three institutional forms.
Instead, governments collaborate with private organizations to
form public-private hybrids,7 delegate public standard-setting,8
and outsource services to private corporations.9 These types of
public-private activities are an important form of governance,
but they all require government action, and, when directed
toward climate change, they face many of the same barriers
that have contributed to national and international gridlock.
In contrast, the private governance initiatives discussed in
this Article occur without government collaboration,
delegation, or outsourcing. In fact, although some participants
may hope to forestall eventual government action, these
initiatives often arise only after it is clear that government will
not act in the near term.10 In some cases, such as when a non6. See NEAL KOMESAR, IMPERFECT ALTERNATIVES: CHOOSING INSTITUTIONS IN LAW,
ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY 313 (1994) (noting that choosing among institutions is
the central problem of government); Edward L. Rubin, The New Legal Process, The
Synthesis of Discourse, and the Microanalysis of Institutions, 109 HARV. L. REV. 1393,
140618 (1996) (discussing institutions addressed by comparative institutional
analysis).
7. See, e.g., Jody Freeman, Collaborative Governance in the Administrative State, 45
UCLA L. REV. 1, 2 (1997) (discussing public-private hybrids).
8. See Peter L. Strauss, Private Standards Organizations and Public Law, 22 WM. &
MARY BILL RTS. J. 497 (2013) (examining delegation of federal standard-setting); Nina
A. Mendelson, Private Control over Access to Public Law: The Perplexing Federal
Regulatory Use of Private Standards, 112 MICH. L. REV. 737 (2014) (same); JESSICA
GREEN, RETHINKING PRIVATE AUTHORITY: AGENTS AND ENTREPRENEURS IN GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE (2013) (discussing delegation of authority on climate
change); see also Louis L. Jaffe, Law Making by Private Groups, 51 HARV. L. REV. 201,
212 (1937) (noting importance of public-private regulatory activity).
9. See Jody Freeman & Martha Minow, Introduction: Reframing the Outsourcing
Debates, in GOVERNMENT BY CONTRACT: OUTSOURCING AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 1,
20 (Jody Freeman & Martha Minow eds., 2009); Jody Freeman, Extending Public Law
Norms Through Privatization, 116 HARV. L. REV. 1285, 1285 (2003). See generally
Michael C. Dorf & Charles F. Sabel, A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism, 98
COLUM. L. REV. 267 (1998) (examining new forms of government-private interactions).
10. An example is the Forest Stewardship Council, which formed after the collapse
of an international forestry standards effort. See Steven Bernstein & Benjamin
Cashore, Can Non-State Global Governance Be Legitimate?: An Analytical Framework,
1 REG. & GOVERNANCE 347, 34950 (2007); see also Edward Klump, Texas Utility CEO
Describes Inevitability of Low-Carbon Future, ENERGY WIRE, Oct. 1, 2014 (noting that
electric utility executive remained agnostic on whether climate change is caused by
humans, but described a certain inevitability of low-carbon policies).
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governmental organization (NGO) conducts a campaign to

reduce household emissions, private governance initiatives do
not fit neatly into any of the standard institutional forms. In
other cases, such as when a corporation responds to NGO
pressure by including carbon emissions reduction requirements
in supply chain contracts, or when a corporation participates in
a private certification and labeling program, private
governance initiatives can be characterized as market
activities, although the initiatives do not fit the standard
conceptions of unfettered markets, government intervention in
markets, or collaboration between market participants and
government.
Given the unconventional nature of private climate
governance initiatives, it is understandable that private
initiatives may not even be on the table in many discussions of
climate mitigation among scholars and policymakers. Yet this
conceptual barrier should not blind us to the opportunity.
Whether characterized as a new type of institution or as
activities that exist between existing institutional forms,11
private climate governance initiatives exist at a surprisingly
large scale, can be expanded despite government gridlock, can
reach constituencies that resist government regulation, can
reduce emissions in developed and developing countries, and
can complement government policies, rather than compete with
them.
The potential for a private climate governance strategy to
yield prompt, major reductions at low cost does not rest on
unrealistic assumptions about individual or corporate altruism,
but it does require rigorous analysis of the motivations for
carbon-emitting behavior and the ability of private institutions
to respond.12 The actions that are potentially subject to private
initiatives can be evaluated based on their technical potential
(the emissions reductions that would arise if all possible
11. A better analytical framework than the three institutions typically included in
comparative institutional analysis may be the three systems (government, markets,
and civil society) examined by sociologists. See JEAN L. COHEN & ANDREW ARATO,
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL THEORY 31624 (1992); JURGEN HABERMAS, THE THEORY
OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION, VOL. 2 (Thomas McCarthy trans., 1985).
12. See, e.g., OSTROM, supra note 4, at 185 (Some appropriators can supply
themselves with new rules, gain quasi-voluntary compliance with those rules, and
monitor each others conformance to those rules, whereas others cannot.).
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household or corporate behavior change occurred) and

behavioral plasticity (the extent of the behavior change that
can reasonably be expected from an intervention).13 The
actions included in the private climate governance strategy
score high on both measures.
The high technical potential arises from the large emissions
from many sources and ability to scale up initiatives to address
multiple small sources. For instance, households are not the
traditional targets of environmental law, but private initiatives
directed at households have high technical potential: in the
United States, households account for roughly a third of GHG
emissions.14 The corporate sector, a common participant in
private initiatives, accounts for a similar share.15
The high behavioral plasticity arises from the ability of
private initiatives to target behaviors that can be changed
without the coercive power or resources of government.
Households and corporations often act out of self-interest, and
carbon emissions often arise from inefficient use of fossil fuels
and other materials. As a result, self-interested actions often
will yield emissions reductions.
Behavioral failures and
market failures are obstacles to emissions reductions, but these
failures provide opportunities for private initiatives to draw on
self-interest to shift behavior with little or no coercion.16 For
example, research demonstrates that people do not always act
in their own interest; on occasion they need a nudge to
13. See, e.g., Thomas Dietz, Gerald T. Gardner, Jonathan Gilligan, Paul C. Stern &
Michael P. Vandenbergh, Household Action Can Provide a Behavioral Wedge to
Rapidly Reduce US Carbon Emissions, 106 PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI. 18452, 18455 (2009)
(evaluating technical potential and behavioral plasticity of 17 action types); see also
Benjamin Sovacool, Energy Studies Need Social Science, 511 NATURE 529, 52930
(2014) (discussing need to broaden energy policy analysis).
14. See Michael P. Vandenbergh & Anne C. Steinemann, The Carbon-Neutral
Individual, 82 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1673 (2007); Gerald T. Gardner & Paul C. Stern, The
Short List: The Most Effective Actions U.S. Households Can Take to Curb Climate
Change, 50 ENVT 12, 1216 (2008).
15. See, e.g., Michael P. Vandenbergh & Mark A. Cohen, Climate Change
Governance: Boundaries and Leakage, 18 N.Y.U. ENVTL. L.J. 221, 221 (2010)
(discussing corporate emissions).
16. See, e.g., WILLIAM PRINDLE, U.S. ENVTL PROTECTION AGENCY, ENERGY
EFFICIENCY AS A LOW-COST RESOURCE FOR ACHIEVING CARBON EMISSIONS
REDUCTIONS, 4-1 to 4-3 (2009); INTL ENERGY AGENCY, MIND THE GAP: QUANTIFYING
PRINCIPAL-AGENT PROBLEMS IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY (2007) (summarizing research on
market failures in energy efficiency).
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motivate them to do so,17 and by 2020 behavioral initiatives

that rely on nudge-type interventions can reduce household
emissions by an amount equal to all of the emissions of
France.18 At the corporate level, private efforts have identified
a wide range of market failures. An example is the rate
structure common in the shipping industry. The standard
practice is to allocate most shipping fuel costs to the customer,
not the shipping company, leaving the party that has the most
control over fuel use with limited incentives to invest in
efficiency. These types of market failures undermine efficiency,
and private initiatives can correct many of them without the
power or resources of government.19
Some household and corporate private initiatives have high
behavioral plasticity not because they draw on self-interest but
because they draw on existing public support for climate
mitigation. In the U.S., only a small subset of the population
places a high priority on climate mitigation, although a larger
share supports mitigation but gives it a low priority.20 These
levels of support are insufficient to drive federal legislation,
especially when a minority that places a high priority on
blocking climate-related regulation can influence elections.21
Private initiatives can harness the existing support for
mitigation among a subset of the population, however, through
initiatives that affect consumer choices, household energy use,
investments, corporate management decisions, and other
actions.
Although the technical potential and behavioral plasticity of
private climate initiatives are important, this Article argues
that a third concept, policy plasticity, has been given
insufficient attention in climate debates.22
For climate
17. See, e.g., CASS R. SUNSTEIN & RICHARD THALER, NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS
ABOUT HEALTH, WELFARE, AND HAPPINESS (2008) (identifying nudging strategies).
18. See Dietz et al., supra note 13, at 18454.
19. See discussion infra Parts III.A and IV.
20. See discussion infra Part III.A.
21. The Tea Party mounted successful primary challenges to conservative
Republican incumbents, such as Bob Inglis, who supported action on climate change.
See Evan Lehman, Republicans Learn the Perils of Being Politically Incorrect on
Climate Change, CLIMATEWIRE, Nov. 22, 2010.
22. See, e.g., WILLIAM NORDHAUS, THE CLIMATE CASINO: RISK, UNCERTAINTY, AND
ECONOMICS FOR A WORLD WARMING 27273 (2013) (noting political obstacles to carbon
tax but not accounting for the timing implications).
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mitigation, policy plasticity is the extent to which an

organization can implement the initiatives necessary to achieve
potential emissions reductions. Policy plasticity can depend on
a variety of factors, but the policy plasticity of a carbon price
whether a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade programis largely a
function of political feasibility. Although pricing carbon is a
first-best response that holds understandable theoretical
appeal,23 the policy plasticity is low:
a national and
international carbon price is unlikely to be adopted and
implemented in the next decade.24 For many types of social
problems, delay is not a substantial problem, but for climate
change, time matters.
The delay caused by political
infeasibility will raise mitigation costs by forty percent per
decade, and the theoretical appeal of a carbon price can crowd
out development of second-best responses in the interim.25
Private governance initiatives are second-best options that
lack the breadth and power of national legislation and
international agreements, but they have high policy
plasticity.26
They can bypass many of the barriers to
government action at the national and international levels.
They also can leverage the recent growth in international
23. See, e.g., id. at 22032 (advocating carbon tax); ANDREW T. GUZMAN,
OVERHEATED: THE HUMAN COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE (2013) (concluding that [t]he
story of how best to combat climate change is essentially a pricing strategy); Jonathan
B. Wiener, Think Globally, Act Globally: The Limits of Local Climate Change Policies,
155 U. PA. L. REV. 1961 (2007).
24. See Jonathan M. Gilligan & Michael P. Vandenbergh, Accounting for Political
Opportunity Costs in Climate Instrument Choice, 32 VA. ENVTL. L.J. 1 (2014); see also
discussion infra Part II.
25. See, e.g., NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 26673 (dismissing second-best
approaches because unless we implement an effective policy of carbon pricing, we will
get virtually nowhere in slowing climate change).
26. For a recent discussion of second-best responses, see infra Part II.C. See also
Paul Krugman, The Big Green Test: Conservatives and Climate Change, NY TIMES,
June 23, 2014, at A11 (Emissions taxes are the Economics 101 solution to pollution
problems; every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a
clean, across-the-board carbon tax. But that isnt going to happen in the foreseeable
future. A carbon tax may be the best thing we could do, but we wont actually do it.);
DAVID G. VICTOR, GLOBAL WARMING GRIDLOCK:
CREATING MORE EFFECTIVE
STRATEGIES FOR PROTECTING THE PLANET 9 (2011) (noting that [p]olicies that are
politically viable will . . . not be identical with policies that are economically optimal,
and in some cases the dispersion between the viable and the optimal will be huge);
Lori Snyder Bennear & Robert Stavins, Second-Best Theory and the Use of Multiple
Policy Instruments, 37 ENVTL. RES. ECON. 111 (2007) (discussing use of second-best
instruments).
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trade, extending pressure for climate mitigation across

national borders. This is a critical feature of private climate
governance.
The deep divide between developed and
developing countries is a principal obstacle to an international
climate agreement, and private governance initiatives are one
of the few viable tools that can create incentives for developing
countries to make credible emissions reduction commitments.27
Private governance is also one of the few ways to address
ideological barriers to climate mitigation. Many people in the
U.S. and other countries who might otherwise be open to
climate mitigation are opponents because of concerns about big
government.28 The prevalence of this worldview may explain
why more people believe corporations should act to mitigate
climate change than believe government should act.29 By
drawing on private institutions, private governance initiatives
have the potential to bypass concerns about big government,
bringing moderates, conservatives, and libertarians into the
climate mitigation effort.
To explain the importance of private climate governance, this
Article is structured around three propositions. The first is the
need for urgency. Part I demonstrates why substantial GHG
emissions reductions are needed over the next decade to reduce
the risks of major climate disruption and the costs of
mitigation. The second proposition is that the barriers to
adopting and implementing a carbon price are unlikely to be
overcome in the next decade. Part II demonstrates why
national and international processes will leave a large gap
between actual emissions and the most widely adopted target
level.
The third proposition is that unlocking the potential of
private governance will require a conceptual shift by scholars,
philanthropists, and corporate and NGO managers. Parts III
and IV use extensive examples of existing and new private
climate initiatives to demonstrate that private governance is
not a sideshow but is one of the few ways to bypass government
gridlock and achieve major emissions reductions over the next
27. See Michael P. Vandenbergh, Climate Change: The China Problem, 81 SO. CAL.
L. REV. 905 (2008).
28. See discussion infra Part II.A.
29. See discussion infra Part II.B.
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decade.30 The discussion of existing efforts is exhaustive

because the continued focus on a carbon price in scholarly and
public debates suggests an unwarranted level of skepticism
about the viability of other options. Private initiatives already
are reducing annual global GHG emissions by millions of tons,
and new initiatives such as a private climate prediction market
and a climate registry, along with a full-throttled effort to
exploit the potential of existing efforts, can yield major new
reductions.
Private initiatives cannot keep global emissions on track to
achieve the most widely adopted climate target, but they can
achieve a private governance wedge:
they can reduce
emissions by roughly 1,000 million tons (a gigaton) of CO2 per
year between 2016 and 2025. When combined with other
efforts, this private governance wedge offers a reasonable
chance of buying a decade to resolve the current government
gridlock.
Part V addresses conceptual barriers that are
keeping attention focused on a carbon price and crowding out
consideration of other options.
I. URGENCY
Why not just wait for national and international processes to
adopt and implement an effective government response?
Although the implications of the climate science have been
explored at length elsewhere, the continued promotion of
30. See infra Parts III and IV. For other examples of private governance, see
Ganesh Sitaraman, Contracting Around Citizens United, 114 COLUM. L. REV. 755
(2014) (election law); Bernstein & Cashore, supra note 10 (political science); David
Vogel, The Private Regulation of Global Corporate Conduct, 49 BUS. & SOCY 68, 68
(2010) (business ethics); Tim Bartley, Certifying Forests and Factories: States, Social
Movements, and the Rise of Private Regulation in the Apparel and Forest Products
Fields, 31 POL. & SOCY 433, 43334 (2003) (sociology); Marc Allen Eisner, Private
Environmental Governance in Hard Times: Markets for Virtue and the Dynamics of
Regulatory Change, 12 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 489 (2011) (public policy); Kenneth
W. Abbott & Duncan Snidal, The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards
Institutions and the Shadow of the State, in THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL REGULATION 44,
46 (Walter Mattli & Ngaire Woods eds., 2009) (international relations); David P. Baron,
Private Politics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Integrated Strategy, 10 J. ECON.
& MGMT. STRATEGY 7 (2001) (economics); Errol E. Meidinger, Environmental
Certification Programs and U.S. Environmental Law: Closer Than You Think, 31
ENVTL. L. REP. 10162 (2001) (environmental law); TIMOTHY LYTTON, KOSHER: PRIVATE
REGULATION IN THE AGE OF INDUSTRIAL FOOD (2012) (food regulation).
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mitigation measures that will take many years to adopt and

implement suggests the need to explain the basis for urgency.
At the outset, the optimal levels and timing of emissions
reductions are hotly contested and involve questions of science,
economics, and justice. Selecting an optimal level involves
identifying the climate effects of any given level of emissions,
the costs of climate harms and of emissions reductions, and the
distribution of those costs within the current generation and
across many future generations. Each of these points involves
uncertainty, so choices reflect risk tolerance as well as other
preferences.
A. Climate Targets
Credible arguments have been made for targets of 1C,31
2C,32 and 3C33 above pre-industrial levels, suggesting
atmospheric CO2 targets of roughly 350 parts per million
(ppm), 450 ppm, and 550 ppm, respectively.34 Others have
advocated eliminating temperature targets altogether.35
Although not without controversy, 2C is the target selected by
many scientific bodies, and it was recognized by the
international climate process at Copenhagen in 200936 and
Cancun in 2010.37 In addition, a simple, clear goal, even if
imperfect, may be necessary as a focal point around which
31. James Hansen et al., Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to
Protect Young People and Nature, 8 PLOS ONE e81648 (2013), available at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 [http://perma.cc/QH2R-JB25] (last visited
June 7, 2015).
32. For a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the 2C goal, see Cline
Guivarch & Stphane Hallegatte, 2C or Not 2C?, 23 GLOBAL ENVTL. CHANGE 179, 180
88 (2013). For a discussion of the importance of focal points, see Andrew T. Guzman &
Timothy L. Meyer, International Soft Law, 2 J. LEG. ANALYSIS 171, 189 (2010).
33. See, e.g., NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 7677, 14041 (discussing different
temperature targets).
34. See Guivarch & Hallegatte, supra note 32, at 192; see also NORDHAUS, supra
note 22, at 22024 (summarizing basis for 2C target).
35. See David G. Victor & Charles F. Kennel, Climate Policy: Ditch the 2C
Warming Goal, 514 NATURE 30, 3031 (2014).
36. See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen,
Den., Dec. 718, 2009, Draft Decision. U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2009/L.7 (Dec. 18, 2009).
37. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Cancun, Mexico.,
Nov. 29 Dec. 10 2010, The Cancun Agreement: Outcome of the Work of the Ad Hoc
Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention, U.N. Doc.
FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.1 (Mar. 15, 2011) .
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support can be mobilized and the fairness of each countrys

mitigation commitments can be judged.
The 2C goal is not dictated by the climate science, but it
reflects the insights of the science. It is not possible to
determine a safe level of temperature increase or of
atmospheric CO2, but exceeding the 2C target can be
analogized to operating a car in the red zone on the
tachometer.
The tachometer measures the number of
revolutions per minute by the drive shaft, and at some point
engine failure can occur if the number of revolutions per
minute is too high. Operating a car in the red zone may not
result in engine failure, but the likelihood of engine failure
increases steeply.38
Although no bright line has been
identified, studies suggest that inflection points exist above the
2C level in the likelihood and severity of climate feedback
effects and of cascades in human systems.39 In fact, recent
research finds that it is probably already too late to prevent the
West Antarctic Ice Sheet from collapsing over the next several
centuries, which would raise global sea levels by roughly to
feet.40
Emissions reductions will be costly, and a leading economist
has suggested that when both the costs of emissions reductions
and the costs of climate harms are accounted for, a 2.5 or 3C
target may be preferable to the 2C target.41 Data used to
calibrate this analysis were recently found to have
underestimated the damage caused by small amounts of
warming,42 however, and this analysis gives limited weight to
38. Gilligan & Vandenbergh, supra note 24, at 8.

39. See supra notes 911 & accompanying text. For a recent discussion analogizing
climate risks to the subprime debt crisis of 2007 to 2008, see Henry M. Paulson Jr.,
Week in Review, The Coming Climate Crash, N.Y. TIMES, June 22, 2014, at 1.
40. Ian Joughin et al., Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the
Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica, 344 SCI. 735, 73638 (2014); E. Rignot et al.,
Widespread, Rapid Grounding Line Retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and
Kohler Glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011, 41 GEOPHYS. RES. LETT. 3502
(2014); Thomas Sumner, No Stopping the Collapse of West Antarctic Ice Sheet, 344 SCI.
683 (2014).
41. NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 17081.
42. Richard S. J. Tol, Correction and Update: The Economic Effects of Climate
Change, 28 J. ECON. PERSPECT. 221, 22226 (2014) (reporting that some damages had
been omitted and others mistakenly entered as benefits).
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low probability, high consequence climate events.43 Climate

scientists have identified a number of these events, and any
one of them could be sufficiently large to challenge
assumptions that are central to the analysis.44 Therefore, this
Article examines emissions reductions based on a 2C goal.
Goals of 2.5C or 3C would relieve the urgency somewhat, but
would not eliminate it.
Achieving any of these targets will require significant
emissions cuts.45 To achieve the 2C target, many scientists
believe that atmospheric CO2 concentrations should peak in the
near term and should not exceed 450 ppm. Current levels are
roughly 400 ppm and are increasing by a little more than 2
ppm per year.46 Limiting atmospheric CO2 concentrations to
450 ppm will require reducing annual worldwide greenhouse
gas emissions roughly 4070% below 2010 levels by 2050.
Even with these cuts it might be necessary to reduce emissions
to zero between 2050 and 2100, and to achieve negative
emissions by removing GHGs from the atmosphere.47 After
emissions are curtailed, CO2 concentrations will remain high
for thousands of years.48
Why not delay emissions reductions? Temperatures have
increased almost 1C since the beginning of the industrial
revolution, and with emissions now at record levels every
decade of delay will result in a further commitment of roughly
0.5C (0.9F).49 Delaying emissions reductions will increase the
peak temperature and will require steeper emissions
reductions in the future to achieve any given temperature
43. Simon Dietz & Nicholas Stern, Endogenous Growth, Convexity of Damages and
Climate Risk: How Nordhaus Framework Supports Deep Cuts in Carbon Emissions
(Ctr. for Climate Change Economics & Policy, Working Paper No. 180, 2014).
44. See Michael Vandenbergh & Jonathan Gilligan, Macro Risks: The Challenge for
Rational Risk Regulation, 21 DUKE ENVTL. L. & POLY FORUM 401 (2011).
45. Thomas Stocker & Myles Allen, Impact of Delay in Reducing Carbon Dioxide
Emissions, 4 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE 23 (2014).
46. See Guivarch & Hallegatte, supra note 32, at 192.
47. O. EDENHOFER ET AL., Technical Summary, in CLIMATE CHANGE 2014:
MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE. CONTRIBUTION OF WORKING GROUP III TO THE FIFTH
ASSESSMENT REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, Table
TS.1, at 26 (O. Edenhofer et al. eds., 2013).
48. Susan Solomon et al., Irreversible Climate Change Due to Carbon Dioxide
Emissions, 106 PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI. 1704 (2009); David Archer et al., Atmospheric
Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide, 37 ANNU. REV. EARTH PLANET. SCI. 117 (2009).
49. Stocker & Allen, supra note 45, at 23.
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target. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) and other analyses conclude that delaying action by a
few decades could make it impossible to keep concentrations
below 450 or even 550 ppm.50 Although estimates differ on the
costs of delay, a recent Council of Economic Advisors report
concludes that each decade of delay will increase mitigation
costs by roughly forty percent, and the IPCC found that
delaying action until 2030 could more than double mitigation
costs.51 An independent study calculated that delaying action
by fifty years would cost $6.5 trillion.52
One reason that delay is costly arises from investments in
energy infrastructure.
Much of the existing energy
infrastructure is nearing its end of life, which creates an
opportunity to replace it with low-emissions infrastructure.
Emissions from current infrastructure over the rest of its
expected life will leave atmospheric CO2 concentrations below
430 ppm, and the global average temperature 1.3C above
preindustrial times.53 If this infrastructure is replaced at the
end of its useful life with equipment that produces high
emissions and has an expected lifetime of forty years or more,
however, it will be costly to replace it with low-emissions
50. EDENHOFER, supra note 47, at 32; NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 17879
(concluding that the cost of meeting the Copenhagen objective of 2C would be modest
if it is undertaken efficiently . . . . [But] delayed participation of a substantial part of
the world will make it virtually impossiblenot just costlyto meet the Copenhagen
objective of 2C); id. at 17881 (finding that unless virtually all countries participate
very soon, and do so in an efficient manner, . . . limiting the increase in global
temperature to 2C is not possible, and that if some countries take prompt action but
many others delay action until the twenty-second century, the costs rise very quickly
for temperature targets below 4C); INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY, WORLD ENERGY
OUTLOOK 2014, Annex A 24 (2014) (emphasizing that without steep emissions cuts
before 2040 it will be impossible to keep warming below 2C).
51. COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, THE
COST OF DELAYING ACTION TO STEM CLIMATE CHANGE 3 (2014); EDENHOFER, supra
note 47, at 33, fig. TS.13 (finding that delaying action until 2030 could more than
double the cost of achieving 2C); see also L. Clarke et al., Assessing Transformation
Pathways, in CLIMATE CHANGE 2014: MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE 53 (O.
Edenhofer et al. eds., 2014) (reporting that even if some countries took prompt action,
delays by others until 2030 or 2050 could raise mitigation costs by 50% to more than
100%).
52. NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 300.
53. Steven J. Davis et al., Future CO2 Emissions and Climate Change from Existing
Energy Infrastructure, 329 SCI. 1330, 1330 (2010).
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231
technology before then. Thus, a limited window exists for

replacing high-emissions energy infrastructure at low cost.
B. Private Governance Wedge
A range of pathways will achieve the 2C goal. This Article
focuses on the 450 pathway for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel
consumption, published by the International Energy Agency
(IEA).54 The dotted line in Figure 1 represents the IEAs 450
pathway, which is designed to limit atmospheric CO2 levels to
450 ppm.
Figure 1. Emissions Reductions Wedge 20162025 (million metric tons of CO2)
The IEA also publishes a projection of the global emissions

pathway with likely government policies in the U.S. and
around the world (the solid line in Figure 1).55 A substantial
gap exists between the projected emissions under likely
government policies and the 450 pathway (the shaded area in
Figure 1).
GHG emissions are reported in various ways, but the
analysis in this Article uses only metric tons of CO2 from fossil
54. INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY, supra note 50, at Annex A. For a discussion of
the wedge concept, see Stephen Pacala & Robert Socolow, Stabilization Wedges:
Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies, 305 SCI.
MAGAZINE 968, 968 (2004).
55. INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY, supra note 50. The IEA analysis is roughly
consistent with the analysis performed by the Climate Action Initiative, an NGO that
analyzes the impacts of government policies on global carbon emissions. See Below 2C
or 1.5C Depends on Rapid Action from Both Annex I and Non-Annex I Countries,
CLIMATE ACTION TRACKER (June 4, 2014), http://climateactiontracker.org/news/156/
Below-2C-or-1.5C-depends-on-rapid-action-from-both-Annex-I-and-non-Annex-Icountries.html [http://perma.cc/9XH8-PDJL].
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fuel consumption. We omit other greenhouse gas emissions

and CO2 emissions from sources other than fossil fuels for
several reasons. CO2 emissions contribute sixty-five percent of
the annual increase in the earths heat imbalance, and this
proportion has grown steadily for more than forty years.56 CO2
emissions from industrial and energy activity can be accounted
for more accurately than other sources of greenhouses gases.57
CO2 is by far the longest lived of the major GHGs, and our
policy focus is on the irreversible long-term consequences of
climate change. Finally, because of the central role of energy
in the world economy, emissions from fossil fuel consumption
are widely seen as the most intractable piece of the climate
policy conundrum.58 Thus, in limiting our scope to CO2
emissions from fossil-fuel use, we focus on the most dangerous
GHG and perhaps the most difficult aspect of climate
mitigation.
The wedge of emissions reductions necessary to fill the gap
between the 450 pathway and the likely government policies
pathway is roughly 900 million metric tons of CO2 in 2016,
growing to roughly 6,300 million tons in 2025.59 On average,
the gap is roughly 4,000 million tons (4 gigatons) per year over
this period. This is the bogey for any new climate strategy or
combination of strategies over the next decade: to reduce the
risk of major climate disruption and the costs of mitigation,
over the next decade new initiatives should achieve a wedge
with average annual CO2 emissions reductions of roughly 4,000
56. INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE 2014:
MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE 7 (2014).
57. See NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, ADVANCING THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE
CHANGE (2010).
58. See, e.g., Martin I. Hoffert et al., Energy Implications of Future Stabilization of
Atmospheric CO2 Content, 395 NATURE 881, 881 (1998) (concluding that [s]tabilizing
atmospheric CO2 . . . implies a massive transition to carbon-free power).
59. In the remainder of this Article, the term ton refers to a metric tonne, or
roughly 2,200 pounds. The Article uses the rough target of 4,000 million tons of CO2,
rather than a more precise estimate of 3,730 million tons, because of the wide range of
estimates of the quantity and timing of CO2 emissions necessary to achieve 2C and the
levels that will occur after actual government policies. The 4,000 million ton total
includes not only the tons of emissions required between 2016 and 2025, but also
roughly 1,300 million tons necessary to make up for emissions over the 450 pathway
that occurred between 2012 and 2015. Rounding the target up from 3,700 to 4,000
million tons makes our feasibility estimates conservative so that it may well be easier
than we predict to follow a path toward limiting CO2 to 450 ppm.
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233
million tons per year, over and above the emissions reductions
that will be achieved through likely government policies.
II. BARRIERS
The most obvious institutional candidates to achieve major
emissions reductions are government regulation or government
intervention in markets to establish a carbon price. Many
national governments have the legitimacy and the coercive
power necessary to dictate emissions reductions within their
borders and have the capacity to negotiate international
agreements that include credible emissions reduction
commitments from other countries. Scholars have identified
pricing carbon as the most efficient means by which
governments can reduce emissions,60 and much of the scholarly
and policy activity has focused on the design of a domestic and
international carbon price.61 Pricing carbon can limit global
warming at a small cost if it is implemented quickly and
universally. The greater the delays or the more nations fail to
join a pricing accord, however, the less efficient and more
expensive the policies will be.62
Will a carbon price be adopted and implemented in the
United States and by the other major emitting nations in the
next decade? It is certainly possible. Only a dozen countries
60. See Gilbert E. Metcalf & David Weisbach, The Design of A Carbon Tax, 33 HARV.
ENVTL. L. REV. 499, 517 (2009); Reuven S. Avi-Yonah & David M. Uhlmann,
Combating Global Climate Change: Why a Carbon Tax Is a Better Response to Global
Warming Than Cap and Trade, 28 STAN. ENVTL. L.J. 3, 45 (2009).
61. See Nell Greenfield-Boyce, Climate Change Adjustments Must Be Fast and
Major, NATL PUB. RADIO (Apr. 13, 2014, 9:40 AM), http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwoway/2014/04/13/302541260/climate-change-adjustments-must-be-fast-and-large-u-npanel-says [http://perma.cc/YHJ8-GG45] (discussing comments from Robert Stavins
discussing IPCC report conclusion that action is needed in fifteen years and advocating
carbon tax); N. Greg Mankiw, A Missed Opportunity on Climate Change, N.Y. TIMES,
Aug. 9, 2009, at BU4 (regarding a Harvard economist and former advisor to President
George W. Bush advocating for carbon tax); WARWICK J. MCKIBBIN ET AL., THE
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DELAYS IN U.S. CLIMATE POLICY (2014), available at
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/06/03%20economic%20co
nsequences%20delay%20us%20climate%20policy/03_economic_consequences_delay_us
_climate_policy.pdf [http://perma.cc/FGN9-YUL7].
62. See Vandenbergh & Cohen, supra note 15, at 221 (finding that if many of the
worlds largest-emitting nations participated in a pricing agreement, incentives for
leakage could be reduced, which would make the policies more effective); NORDHAUS,
supra note 22, at 17679, 300.
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account for roughly seventy percent of global CO2 emissions,

and the U.S. and China together account for roughly forty
percent of global emissions.63 Top-down leadership could
emerge among politicians in several of the major emitting
countries to shift public opinion and overcome political
resistance, and commitments by these countries could induce
other countries to make similar commitments. A series of
dramatic weather events (droughts, heat waves, storms) or new
scientific reports could affect public opinion and create bottomup pressure for climate policy in these nations.64 Major
technological breakthroughs or advances in geoengineering
could reduce the size of the carbon price needed to achieve the
temperature target.65 The depth of the political barriers,
however, suggests that adoption and implementation of a
carbon price at the national and international levels over the
next decade is a long shot.66
A. National Legislation
In the U.S., a national carbon price requires federal
legislation to create a carbon tax or a tradable entitlement to
pollute. The size of the carbon price has a large effect on its
political feasibility, but economists are surprisingly uncertain
about the price necessary to achieve 2C or any other
63. See CAIT Climate Data Explorer, WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE (2011), http://
cait2.wri.org/wri/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator[]=Total%20GHG%20Emissi
ons%20Excluding%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator[]=
Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20
Forestry&year[]=2011&chartType=geo [http://perma.cc/L25T-XRA4].
64. See Jeff Joireman et al., Effect of Outdoor Temperature, Heat Primes, and
Anchoring on Belief in Global Warming, 30 J. ENVTL. PSYCHOL. 358 (2010).
65. See ROGER PIELKE, JR., THE CLIMATE FIX: WHAT SCIENTISTS AND POLITICIANS
WONT TELL YOU ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING (2010) (emphasizing need for new
technologies); Alan Carlin, Global Climate Change Control: Is There a Better Strategy
Than Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 200 (2007)
(emphasizing role of geoengineering).
66. See, e.g., Krugman, supra note 27 (stating that a carbon tax isnt going to
happen in the foreseeable future); Anthony Adragna, Recent Republican Calls for
Climate Action Unlikely to Produce Results, Senators Say, 45 ENVT REP. 1973 (2014)
(noting depth of resistance to national carbon tax among conservatives); see also
Marjorie Connelly, Jon Huang & Jeremy Merrill, 2014 Exit Polls, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 4,
2014, available at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/04/us/politics/2014-exitpolls.html [http://perma.cc/F25Z-GKHK] (reporting that climate change is second only
to the Affordable Care Act in dividing Democrats and Republicans, and is more
polarizing than immigration, marijuana legalization, and same-sex marriage).
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235
temperature goal.
Estimates of the global carbon price
necessary in 2020 to achieve the 2C target vary from roughly
$15 to well over $200 per metric ton of CO2.67 Developed
countries will likely need to bear a greater share of the
mitigation costs than developing countries, and one analysis
suggests that achieving the 450 ppm target would require a
U.S. carbon price of roughly $53 per ton by 2015, increasing to
$210 per ton by 2050.68 The longer the carbon price is delayed,
the higher the price must be.69 In addition, since the carbon
price must go up over time to achieve the reductions needed in
later years, the initial legislation must include a schedule of
increasing taxes or declining caps, or legislative battles must
be re-fought every several years.
The recent history of environmental law suggests the
difficulty of adopting any major federal pollution control
legislation. After the enactment of more than a dozen major
statutes from 1970 through 1990, none has been enacted in the
ensuing quarter century.70 Climate change presents challenges
to a legislative response that are at least as great as those
67. See Leon Clarke et al., International Climate Policy Architectures: Overview of
the EMF 22 International Scenarios, 31 ENERGY ECON. S64, tbl.5 (2005) (using 450 ppm
CO2 target); see also Kriegler et al., The Role of Technology for Achieving Climate
Objectives: Overview of the EMF-27 Study on Global Technology and Climate Policy
Strategies, 123 CLIMATIC CHANGE 353 (2014) (concluding that a 450 ppm target would
require a 20202100 average price of $12 to $92 per metric ton of CO2); NORDHAUS,
supra note 22, at 228 (reporting prices of $60 to more than $200 per ton in 2050 to
achieve a more modest 2.5C target). The form of the carbon tax also could affect its
political feasibility. See Tracey M. Roberts, Mitigating the Distributional Impacts of
Climate Change Policy, 67 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 209 (2010).
68. See SERGEY PALTSEV ET AL., MIT JOINT PROGRAM ON THE SCIENCE AND POLICY
OF GLOBAL CHANGE, ASSESSMENT OF U.S. CAP-AND-TRADE PROPOSALS (2007)
(estimating 2015 CO2e price of $53 and 2050 price of $210 per ton). The EIA basic case
projection of carbon prices under the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, which used a
450 ppm CO2e target, priced carbon at $18 in 2012, increasing to $32 in 2020 and $65
in 2030.
69. See Clarke et al., supra note 69, at tbl.5; see also Kriegler et al, supra note 67, at
353 (concluding that a 450 ppm target would require the 20202100 average price of
$12 to $92).
70. Vandenbergh, supra note 3, at 140; see also Michael P. Vandenbergh, The
Emergence of Private Environmental Governance, 44 ENVTL. L. REP. 10125, fig.1 (2014)
(noting absence of major pollution control statutes from 19912013); David Uhlmann,
The Quest for a Sustainable Future, 1 MICH. J. ENVTL. & ADMIN. L. 1, 9 (2012); Richard
J. Lazarus, Congressional Descent:
The Demise of Deliberative Democracy in
Environmental Law, 94 GEO. L.J. 619, 619 (2006) (describing congressional action as
effectively moribund).
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faced by other proposed pollution control statutes, and

Congress has rejected carbon tax and cap-and-trade legislation
on several occasions in the last decade. In addition, the recent
repeal of the Australian carbon tax demonstrates that once a
carbon tax begins to bite, the next response is likely to be tax
relief.71
The difficulties for federal climate legislation are the product
of the intrinsic structure of the climate problem and the design
features of the federal government.72 In short, climate poses a
difficult problem because individuals and organizations can
externalize the harms of carbon-emitting behaviors. This
produces intra- and inter-generational concerns. Individuals
gain the benefits of carbon-emitting actions, and their carbon
emissions cause harm that is shared with others in the U.S.
and around the globe. In addition, although mitigation costs
will be incurred in the near term, the bulk of the benefits will
accrue to future generations. Individuals also face collective
action problems in developing organizations to lobby for a
government response.73
The design features of the federal government exacerbate
these problems. Any legislation must achieve not only the
support of the President and both bodies of Congress, but also
sixty votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. As a result, any
evaluation of the likelihood of a national carbon price must
provide a plausible analysis of how sixty Senators can be
induced to support the effort.
International efforts to
harmonize carbon prices face the greater challenge of winning
sixty-seven votes to ratify a treaty.74 Similarly, if Congress
were to pass climate legislation which was then vetoed by the
President, a two-thirds majority would be required in both the
House and the Senate to override the veto. In addition,
71. See, e.g., Murray Griffin, Australian Party with Balance of Power Refuses to
Back New Carbon Policy, 37 INTL ENVT. REP. 948, 948 (2014),.
72. See generally Richard J. Lazarus, Super Wicked Problems and Climate Change:
Restraining the Present to Liberate the Future, 94 CORNELL L. REV. 1153, 115556
(2009) (identifying climate challenges); Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom & Paul C. Stern,
The Struggle to Govern the Commons, 302 SCI. 1907, 1907 (2003).
73. See MANCUR OLSON, JR., THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: PUBLIC GOODS AND
THE THEORY OF GROUPS 1112 (1965).
74. See Coral Davenport, Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty, N.Y.
TIMES, Aug. 27, 2014, at A1.
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237
advocates for a government response confront not only

standard collective action problems, but also well-funded,
concentrated interests that will be harmed by a carbon price in
the near term.
Equally important, government climate mitigation efforts at
the national level confront deep differences in worldviews.75
Research suggests that reports about climate science and
climate mitigation often trigger big government concerns
among moderates, conservatives, and libertarians.76 These
concerns affect perceptions of the risk posed by climate change
and reduce support for government mitigation policies.77
B. International Agreement
The barriers to national legislation are compounded at the
international level. As with the history of domestic legislation,
the history of international climate negotiations suggests room
for doubt about the adoption and implementation of an
international agreement with credible commitments by the
major emitting nations.78 The slow pace of the international
process reflects the collective action challenges at the
international level. Countries have incentives to free ride on
others efforts, since all countries will benefit from others
reductions but will bear the costs of the reductions on their
own, and even modest free riding can put a 2C target out of
reach.79 Whether the problem is styled as one involving a
public good or a common pool resource,80 the result is largely
75. See Dan M. Kahan, Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection, 8
JUDGMENT & DECISION MAKING 407, 413 (2013); Dan Kahan, Fixing the
Communications Failure, 463 NATURE 296, 297 (2010).
76. See Aaron M. McCright & Riley E. Dunlap, The Politicization of Climate Change
and Polarization in the American Publics Views of Global Warming, 20012010, 52
SOC. Q. 155, 193 (2011).
77. For an overview, see Michael P. Vandenbergh, Kaitlin T. Raimi & Jonathan M.
Gilligan, Energy and Climate Change: A Climate Prediction Market, 61 UCLA L. REV.
1962 (2014).
78. See VICTOR, supra note 26, at 1.
79. NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 179 (stating that delayed participation of a
substantial part of the world will make it virtually impossiblenot just costlyto meet
the Copenhagen objective of 2C).
80. For a discussion of whether the climate problem is better analyzed as a public
good or common pool resource, see Daniel H. Cole, Climate Change and Collective
Action, 61 CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS 229, 230 (2008).
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the same: limited prospects for an international agreement

that will result in adoption and implementation of a global
carbon price in the next decade.
As with domestic climate efforts in the United States, the
design features of the United Nations-sponsored climate
process exacerbate the underlying collective action problems.
The U.N. process requires a high degree of consensus, yet a
meaningful international climate agreement will produce
winners and losers in the near term. The U.N. process
provides many opportunities for potential losers to slow or stop
the development of an agreement with credible commitments.
Although the U.N. process provides roadblocks, the deep
divide between developed and developing countries is perhaps
the greatest barrier to an international agreement. Developed
countries contributed most of the CO2 in the atmosphere
(known as stocks) and benefited most from the
industrialization that generated much of that CO2. Yet most of
the growth in annual CO2 emissions (known as flows) over the
next several decades will arise from developing countries.81 As
a result, the 2C goal is unattainable unless developing
countries reduce emissions below projected business-as-usual
levels.82 Developing countries not only lack the resources of
developed countries, but also can make a strong argument that
their emissions are lower on a per capita basis, that they
should be allowed to gain the same benefits of industrialization
as the developed countries, and that much of their emissions
arise from making goods consumed in developed countries.
As with the domestic process in the U.S., shifts could occur in
the positions of the major emitting nations at the next meeting
81. See Alex Morales, Rich-Poor Divide on Climate Unresolved in UN Policy Paper,
in BNA ENVT. & CLIMATE REP. 1213, July 9, 2014. For a discussion of developed
versus developing world emissions and mitigation positions, see Vandenbergh, supra
note 28, at 91020. See also ERIC POSNER & DAVID WEISBACH, CLIMATE CHANGE
JUSTICE (2010) (noting that the economic activity associated with developed countries
carbon emissions also benefitted developing countries).
82. See Below 2 C or 1.5C Depends on Rapid Action from Both Annex I and NonAnnex I Countries, supra note 55 (noting that the new CAT analysis shows that this
[the Clean Air Act 111(d) existing plant emissions rule] wouldnt be enough: additional
efforts would have to come from the major developing country emitters to close 2020
emissions gap of 813MtCO2e (as estimated by the CAT)); see also P. Friedlingstein et
al., Persistent Growth of CO2 Emissions and Implications for Reaching Climate Targets,
7 NATURE GEOSCIENCE 709, 71015 (2014).
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of the U.N. process, and an agreement with credible

commitments for emissions reductions by the major emitters
could emerge. The history of the negotiations, the collective
action problems, the cumbersome international process, and
the deep differences between developed and developing
countries all make that outcome unlikely.83 Certainly many
statements claiming success can be expected, but the prospects
are dim for an agreement with credible commitments for
adoption and implementation of a carbon price by the major
emitting countries over the next decade.
C. Other Options
After two decades of focusing largely on making the case for a
carbon price, many scholars and policymakers have begun to
examine other complementary and gap-filling options.84
Policymakers at the federal level have developed new motor
vehicle standards, Clean Air Act regulations directed at
existing and new power plants, and other measures.85 With
California as the leading example, states and local
governments have adopted emissions-reduction policies alone
and in regional initiatives.86
These national, state, and local government steps have been
very important, and, along with the increasing availability of
83. See Morales, supra note 81. See, e.g., Krugman, supra note 27 (stating that a
carbon tax isnt going to happen in the foreseeable future).
84. See, e.g., Krugman, supra note 26 (arguing for consideration of second-best
options); Vandenbergh, supra note 3, at 139 (identifying how [u]nderstanding private
environmental governance can lead to new options for tackling climate change);
Vandenbergh, supra note 27, at 911 (proposing use of supply chain contracting
initiatives to create emissions reduction incentives in developing countries); VICTOR,
supra note 26, at 9 (observing a large gap between policies that are politically viable
and policies that are economically optimal).
85. The new EPA proposed rule adopts a thirty percent emissions reduction goal for
electric generating units from 2005 levels, a significant reduction, but that goal will
leave the U.S. with emissions that are five percent higher than 1990 levels, levels that
are higher than if the U.S. had ratified and complied with the Kyoto Protocol. See
Below 2 C or 1.5C Depends on Rapid Action from Both Annex I and Non-Annex I
Countries, supra note 55.
86. See, e.g., Ann Carlson, Iterative Federalism and Climate Change, 103 NW. L.
REV. 1 (2009) (examining federal and state roles in climate mitigation); Jody Freeman
& Andrew Guzman, Climate Change and U.S. Interests, 109 COLUM. L. REV. 1531, 1554
(2009); Joel B. Eisen, Smart Regulation and Federalism for the Smart Grid, 37 HARV.
ENVTL. L. REV. 1 (2013); John C. Dernbach, Harnessing Individual Behavior to Address
Climate Change: Options for Congress, 26 VA. ENVTL. L.J. 107 (2008).
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natural gas and other factors, they will enable the U.S. to make
substantial emissions reductions. The anticipated reductions
from current and likely new government policies in the U.S.
and elsewhere are included in the 450 pathway discussed at
the end of Part I, however, and this will still leave the 4
gigaton gap over the next decade between what likely
government policies will achieve and the 450 pathway. In
response to the limits of current efforts, scholars have
suggested several innovative responses to the gridlock at the
national and international level.
Climate Clubs. Rather than focusing on the design of a
comprehensive international agreement to price carbon, David
Victor and others have drawn on club theory in economics and
the example of multilateral trade agreements to propose
limited climate agreements that can appeal to the interests of a
few nations at first and attract additional participants over
time.87 This work suggests that clubs of countries can form
over shared interests and can attract other countries with
similar incentives. As more countries join these clubs, the
benefits of participating could increase, leading to meaningful
numbers of participants and emissions reductions.88
Polycentric Governance. Before her recent death, Nobel
laureate Elinor Ostrom and colleagues began applying the
concept of polycentric governance to climate mitigation.89
Polycentric governance, first applied to the management of
water resources and the provision of municipal services, refers
to the use of multiple scales of government and NGOs to
87. See VICTOR, supra note 26, at 34; Robert O. Keohane & David G. Victor, The
Regime Complex for Climate Change, 9 PERSP. ON POL. 7, 7 (2011); Matt Potoski &
Aseem Prakash, Green Clubs:
Collective Action and Voluntary Environmental
Programs, 16 ANN. REV. POL. SCI. 399 (2013).
88. For an example of a bilateral agreement that targets GHG emissions, see Press
Release, White House, Fact Sheet: U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate
Change and Clean Energy Cooperation (Nov. 11, 2014), available at http://www.white
house.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/11/fact-sheet-us-china-joint-announcement-climatechange-and-clean-energy-c [http://perma.cc/W8DW-E3AR].
89. See Elinor Ostrom, Nested Externalities and Polycentric Institutions: Must We
Wait for Global Solutions to Climate Change Before Taking Actions at Other Scales?, 49
ECON. THEORY 353 (2012); Daniel Cole, From Global to Polycentric Governance, 2
CLIMATE L. 395 (2011); Benjamin K. Sovacool, An International Comparison of Four
Polycentric Approaches to Climate and Energy Governance, 39 ENERGY POLY 3832
(2011).
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address collective action problems, such as managing common

pool resources.90 Ostrom observed that:
individuals facing [collective action] problems do not always need
an external authority to extract them from their tragedy [of the
commons]. When they . . . can engage with one another, can
learn to trust one another, can draw on sources of reliable data,
can ensure monitoring of their decisions, can create new
instrumentalities, and can adapt over time, they are
frequently . . . able to extract themselves from these challenging
dilemmas.91
This approach rejects the idea that waiting for a

comprehensive international and national government
response is the optimal strategy. Ostrom identified a wide
range of government activities at the local, regional, national,
and global levels that could achieve emissions reductions
despite the political gridlock. An example of polycentric
governance is the successful effort to obtain commitments for
emissions reductions from many cities in the U.S. and around
the world.92
Bottom-up Strategies. Richard Stewart and colleagues have
argued for bottom-up solutions that do not require a
comprehensive international agreement at the outset, but may
reduce emissions and increase the likelihood of an agreement.93
Many of these strategies also involve governments at the subnational level, and some include the types of global actions by
90. See, e.g., Vincent Ostrom et al., The Organization of Government in Metropolitan
Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry, 55 AM. POLI. SCI. REV. 831 (1961); MICHAEL DEAN
MCGINNIS, POLYCENTRIC GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT: READINGS FROM THE
WORKSHOP IN POLITICAL THEORY AND POLICY ANALYSIS (1999).
91. Elinor Ostrom, A Long Polycentric Journey, 13 ANN. REV. OF POLI. SCI. 1, 6
(2010).
92. See U.S. MAYORS CLIMATE PROTECTION AGREEMENT, THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF
MAYORS (2005), available at http://www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/agreement.
htm [http://perma.cc/CRU3-JJFP].
93. See, e.g., Richard B. Stewart et al., Building a More Effective Global Climate
Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach, 14 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 273, 274 (2013)
(identifying bottom-up mitigation strategies); Daniel C. Esty, Bottom-Up Climate Fix,
N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 22, 2014, at A25 (noting that [t]he real action on climate change
around the world is coming from governors, mayors, corporate chief executives and
community leaders); see also Eric Orts, Climate Contracts, 29 VA. ENVTL. L. J. 197
(2010); Sarah Light, The New Insider Trading: Environmental Markets Within the
Firm, 34 STAN. ENVTL. L.J. 3 (2015).
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private parties that are included in the private climate

governance strategy.94 An insight of the bottom-up approach is
the importance of quantifying bottom-up emissions reductions
and crediting them to the source nations in international
climate negotiations.95
The bottom-up approach thus
recognizes the value of multiple small initiatives, of tracking
emissions reductions from these initiatives, and of creating
incentives for future initiatives by attributing the emissions
reductions to participating nations.
These efforts offer promising new approaches, but many
require some form of governmental action. In recent years
even seemingly bipartisan issues in the U.S. such as energy
efficiency and clean technology promotion have become the
subject of legislative gridlock at the national level,96 and the
barriers to government action are not limited to the U.S. If
political resistance is a core barrier to a successful government
climate response, additional climate responses are needed that
can bypass the political process altogether.
III. PRIVATE GOVERNANCE
The conceptual shift at the core of the private climate
governance strategy is that private institutions can achieve
prompt, large carbon emissions reductions. According to a
leading climate policy analyst, [d]omestic policy design faces
one central question: [w]here should government intervene?97
In contrast, the central question for private climate governance
is how private initiatives can induce emissions reductions in
the absence of government intervention. A private climate
governance strategy is not a substitute for effective public
governance or for the creative thinking that has emerged from
work on clubs of countries, polycentric governance, bottom-up
94. See Stewart et al., supra note 93, at 28688.
95. Id. at 275; see also Kenneth W. Abbott, Strengthening the Transnational Regime
Complex for Climate Change, 3 TRANSNATL ENVTL. L. 57 (2014); Kenneth W. Abbott,
Engaging the Public and the Private in Global Sustainability Governance, 88 INTL AFF.
543 (2012); Orts, supra note 93, at 198.
96. See Nick Juliano, Heritage Urges Key Vote Against Senate Efficiency Bill, E&E
NEWS, May 2, 2014, available at http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2014/05/02/stories/
1059998938 [http://perma.cc/H9J4-DKR2].
97. Michael Levi, The Hidden Risks of Energy Innovation, 29 ISSUES SCI. & TECH.
69, 73 (2013).
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strategies, and other new approaches.98

Instead, private
climate initiatives can be implemented along with these other
strategies, and the concept of private governance can serve as a
heuristic to identify viable new private initiatives.
The new and existing private climate governance initiatives
discussed in Parts III and IV are just examples of the efforts
that could be included in a private governance strategy.99 Part
III.A explains why private climate governance is possiblewhy
private parties can be induced to lower carbon emissions even
without the power and resources of governments. Part III.B
provides examples of the opportunities for cross-cutting private
initiatives, and Part IV turns to initiatives that target
corporations and households.
A. Model of Private Climate Governance Drivers
As discussed at the outset, the ability of private governance
initiatives to contribute large, prompt emissions reductions is a
function of the technical potential (the emissions reductions
that would arise if all possible behavior change occurred), and
the behavioral plasticity (the extent of the behavior change
that can reasonably be expected from an intervention) of the
targeted actions. It is also a function of the policy plasticity of
private interventions (the extent to which an organization can
implement the initiatives necessary to achieve the potential
reductions).100
i. Technical Potential
The Article analyzes technical potential when examining the
specific initiatives below, but one overarching point is
important: the initiative must either target behaviors or
sources with large potential emissions reductions or must be
amenable to scaling up to achieve large reductions. For
98. See Sovacool, supra note 13, at 52930.
99. For a recent theory of private authority that focuses on the relationship between
public and private environmental governance, see GREEN, supra note 8. Some of the
initiatives included in the private climate governance strategy presented in this Article
are what Green describes as forms of private entrepreneurial authority (as opposed to
delegated authority), id. at 3334, but many of the initiatives presented here are not
easily characterized as exercises of authority.
100. See Dietz et al., supra note 13, at 18453 (identifying technical potential and
behavioral plasticity).
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instance, the household sector is promising not only because of

the large share of U.S. emissions attributable to households,
but also because of the high technical potential of many specific
household actions. Households use a large amount of energy,
and many households have not taken simple measures that
could significantly reduce energy use, even where these
measures would produce financial savings. These measures
include purchasing more efficient vehicles and appliances,
weatherizing homes, and making small behavioral changes,
such as reducing vehicle idling.101 Yet household initiatives
often face challenges of scale. Research suggests that many
household interventions are more effective if they are carefully
tailored to reflect the norms and beliefs of local communities,
and if they have extensive participation by local community
members, but many of these features also make the most
effective methods difficult to replicate at large scale. The most
attractive private governance initiatives use effective methods
and do so in ways that can be scaled up to yield major
emissions reductions.102
ii. Behavioral Plasticity
Many calls for household and corporate initiatives point to
the large technical potential of a targeted behavior, arguing
that if every household or corporation changed the behavior,
the emissions reductions would be huge.
These wellintentioned efforts often neglect the challenges of achieving
broad and sustained participation.
Carpooling has the
technical potential to achieve enormous emissions reductions
because few drivers currently carpool and each driver who joins
a carpool takes one car off the road. Despite the high technical
potential, however, behavioral plasticity is low because
individuals resist carpooling. Unless the behavioral plasticity
can be greatly increased, it would be unwise to target
carpooling based on technical potential alone.
In contrast to carpooling, other types of carbon-emitting
behaviors have high behavioral plasticity and can be changed
101. Id. See also Amanda R. Carrico et al., Costly Myths: An Analysis of Idling
Beliefs and Behavior in Personal Motor Vehicles, 37 ENERGY POLY 2881 (2009).
102. See Paul C. Stern, Contributions of Psychology to Limiting Climate Change, 66
AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 303 (2011).
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without the coercive authority or resources of government. For

example, inefficient energy use provides an opportunity for
private initiatives to target actions that do not require
altruistic motivations. Instead, these initiatives can target
actions for which market failures or behavioral obstacles are
blocking self-interested actions, and when self-interest aligns
with energy efficiency or conservation, behavioral plasticity can
be high even without government intervention.
Market and behavioral failures can often be corrected
relatively inexpensively by providing information.
For
instance, households and firms often fail to adopt cost-saving
energy efficiency measures if the transaction costs of obtaining
reliable information are too great or if principal-agent problems
create perverse incentives.103 Behavioral failures can arise
when individuals struggle to make rational decisions about
investments with long payback periods, engage in confirmation
bias rather than accurately evaluate new information, act
based on myths, and fail to recognize how much of their
behavior is driven by a desire to act and think like those
around them.104 Many private initiatives help individuals
reduce energy costs by providing information that addresses
these barriers or by overcoming other barriers to household or
motor vehicle efficiency.105
Private governance initiatives also can harness social norms.
Individuals may find it in their interest to reduce carbon
emissions if they expect social sanctions or rewards, and
empirical studies have demonstrated that social norms have
103. See, e.g., PRINDLE, supra note 16; INTL ENERGY AGENCY, supra note 16. In
addition, people perceive participation in the political process to be more difficult than
consumer activism. Edward W. Maibach et al., Communication and Marketing as
Climate Change-Intervention Assets:
A Public Health Perspective, 35 AM. J.
PREVENTIVE MED. 488, 49192, 498 (2008).
104. See, e.g., Michael P. Vandenbergh et al., Regulation in the Behavioral Era, 95
MINN. L. REV. 715 (2011) (identifying behavioral failures); Shazeen Z. Attari et al.,
Public Perceptions of Energy Consumption and Savings, 107 PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI.
16054, 16055 (2010) (identifying incorrect energy beliefs regarding household actions).
Some economists acknowledge the importance of behavioral factors that diminish the
efficiency of carbon pricing, but reject policy measures that focus on those behavioral
factors. See, e.g., NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 26772 (observing that many people
make irrational and wasteful choices about energy use, but opposing a significant role
for regulation in addressing behavioral issues and not considering non-regulatory
measures).
105. See Dietz et al., supra note 13, at 18455.
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pervasive effects on energy and environmental behavior.106

Some private initiatives shift behavior by providing
information that leverages these social norm effects.
Another source of motivation for emissions reductions is
existing support for climate mitigation. Surveys demonstrate
that many individuals support climate mitigation,107 but the
portion of the population that places a high priority on climate
mitigation is not sufficiently high to induce the federal
government to adopt a carbon price, whereas the minority that
places a high priority on blocking climate mitigation wields
considerable power.108
Although the existing levels of
mitigation support are insufficient to drive legislation, they can
be a resource for private governance initiatives. Whereas
public governance measures are often designed to affect most of
the population, a private governance initiative can be
successful even if it only affects the behavior of a small fraction
of the population, especially when it has little or no deadweight
loss and can thus coexist comfortably with a wide variety of
complementary initiatives.109 An example is private carbon
product labeling, which can be successful if it only affects an
influential subset of consumers or if it induces some retailers to
change their product offerings (e.g., many shoppers at upscale
or organic food stores may be concerned about the carbon
footprint of their food).
Private governance initiatives also can motivate emissions
reductions by individuals who support climate mitigation but
who have concerns about government size or intrusion that
discourage them from acting.110 The actions could involve
106. See id. at 1845556.
107. See ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ ET AL., YALE PROJECT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
COMMCN & GEORGE MASON UNIV. CTR. FOR CLIMATE CHANGE COMMCN, GLOBAL
WARMINGS SIX AMERICAS IN SEPTEMBER 2012, at 42 (2013).
108. See supra Part II.
109. Tracey M. Roberts, The Rise of Rule Four Institutions: Voluntary Standards,
Certification and Labeling Schemes, 40 ECOLOGY L. Q. 107, 154 (2013). For a
discussion of the parallels in instruments between public and private governance, see
Sarah E. Light & Eric W. Orts, Parallels in Public and Private Environmental
Governance (forthcoming 2015) (on file with authors).
110. See Kahan, supra note 75, at 13; Vandenbergh et al., supra note 79, at 196670
(citing studies); Troy H. Campbell & Aaron C. Kay, Solution Aversion: On the Relation
Between Ideology and Motivated Disbelief, 107 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 809
(2014), available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25347128 [http://perma.cc/
XFU3-32X4] (last visited Apr. 14, 2015) (noting that a climate-based message reduced
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reducing emissions through their household or corporate

decision-making, and private governance initiatives can
provide an attractive alternative that addresses the climate
problem without challenging a deeply rooted worldview.111
Moderates, conservatives, and libertarians may find that the
private governance strategy allows them to reduce the harms of
climate change using markets, private institutions and other
small government approaches.112
Indeed, prominent
conservative politicians have called for innovation along these
lines in the past.113
Corporations also may reduce emissions in the absence of
government pressure because of self-interested motivations.
Although an extensive literature examines the extent to which
firms are legally obligated to maximize profits or shareholder
value, there is little doubt that many firms attempt to do so
much of the time.114 Private governance initiatives may reduce
transaction costs by providing information to firms or may
create the motivation to identify efficient practices by the firm
or its suppliers. Although efficient markets theorists assume
that firms will identify efficiencies even without external
interventions, if private initiatives simply accelerate the
efficient light bulb uptake by Republicans); Irena Fegina et al., System Justification,
the Denial of Global Warming, and the Possibility of System-Sanctioned Change, 36
PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. BULL. 326 (2010) (noting the influence of emphasizing
maintenance of the status quo).
111. This is not a trivial concern. See, e.g., Dena M. Gromet et al., Political Ideology
Affects Energy-Efficiency Attitudes and Choices, 110 PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI. 9314, 9315
(2013) (noting that a climate-based message reduced efficient light bulb uptake by
Republicans); Vandenbergh et al., supra note 85, at 757 (citing studies).
112. See, e.g., Colin Camerer et al., Regulation for Conservatives: Behavioral
Economics and the Case for Asymmetric Paternalism, 151 U. PA. L. REV. 1211 (2003)
(discussing the potential appeal of behavioral options for conservatives); Vandenbergh
et al., supra note 77, at 196670 (discussing literature on world views and confirmation
bias).
113. John Kerry, Newt Gingrich Take on Environment, Each Other, FOX NEWS, Apr.
11, 2007, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/04/11/john-kerry-newt-gingrich-take-onenvironment-each-other/ [http://perma.cc/Y2EA-F76G] (quoting Gingrich calling for
green conservatism that would urgently reduce carbon emissions using
entrepreneurially, market-oriented, and locally led environmentalism).
114. See, e.g., Einer Elhauge, Sacrificing Corporate Profits in the Public Interest, 80
N.Y.U. L. REV. 733, 77071 (2005) (discussing business judgment rule). For examples
of successes and failures in corporate environmental initiatives, see DANIEL C. ESTY &
ANDREW WINSTON, GREEN TO GOLD: HOW SMART COMPANIES USE ENVIRONMENTAL
STRATEGY TO INNOVATE, CREATE VALUE, AND BUILD COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE (2006).
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achievement of efficiencies and carbon emissions reductions,

that acceleration may yield important social dividends.115
An anecdotal example demonstrates the types of market
failures that affect corporations and that may be ferreted out
by private governance initiatives. Walkers is the United
Kingdoms largest snack food manufacturer and is a subsidiary
of PepsiCo.116 Working with The Carbon Trust, Walkers
conducted a supply chain study to estimate its carbon footprint.
The project identified opportunities to save 18,000 tons of CO2
each year without major operational changes, a reduction of
eight percent of total supply chain emissions. For instance, the
firm concluded that the supply chain could save 9,200 tons of
CO2 just by changing the way potatoes are purchased. Walkers
pays per ton of potatoes, creating incentives by farmers to
increase the water content, and therefore price, of the potatoes
by storing them in humidified warehouses. The humidifiers
emit a significant portion of the CO2 associated with this
process, and Walkers later removes the excess water, using
additional energy. A different pricing strategy could result in
efficiencies for farmers and the manufacturer, and PepsiCo has
examined how it can use the Walkers experience to improve
the efficiency and carbon emissions of other companies in its
portfolio.117
In addition to identifying opportunities to improve efficiency,
private initiatives may draw on corporate self-interest by
affecting a firms reputation with customers, lenders, investors,
employees or other stakeholders.118 Although consumers often
demonstrate limited willingness to pay for lower-carbon goods,
firms respond to more generalized reputational concerns, not
just direct consumer purchasing behavior.119 A recent U.S.
survey found that more people believe corporations should act
115. For the original efficient markets work, see Eugene Fama, Efficient Capital
Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work, 25 J. FIN. 383 (1970).
116. See THE CARBON TRUST, CARBON FOOTPRINTS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN: THE NEXT
STEP FOR BUSINESS 1114 (2006), available at https://www.carbontrust.com/media/
84932/ctc616-carbon-footprints-in-the-supply-chain.pdf [https://perma.cc/8XXH-J5TM].
117. Id. at 14.
118. See, e.g., DANIEL A. DIERMEIER, REPUTATION RULES (2013) (examining the role
of reputation in corporate behavior).
119. See Mark A. Cohen & Michael P. Vandenbergh, The Potential Role of Carbon
Labeling in a Green Economy, 34 ENERGY ECON. S53S63 (2012) (citing studies).
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on climate mitigation (roughly seventy percent) than should

government (roughly sixty percent), suggesting a basis for
corporations concern about their climate reputation.120 Firms
also may expect first-mover advantages if they believe that
government will accept climate mitigation policies in the
future. Firm managers also may believe they can shape
government efforts if they participate in private initiatives,
which may become the model for government policies and
programs.121
Pecuniary advantages also may arise for a firm if climate
actions improve employee morale or if corporate buyers,
lenders, or investors reward climate mitigation efforts. A
number of large corporations are offering employees discounts
on home solar-electricity installations to attract and retain a
work force that is increasingly attuned to the environment and
to the steps employers take to preserve it.122 In response to
the wide range of incentives to reduce emissions, firms
sometimes function as regulators, insisting on emissions
reductions from other firms, such as suppliers and borrowers.
In other situations they function as regulated entities,
responding to pressure from other firms, individuals, or NGOs.
Finally, the decisional space provided by the business
judgment rule and by benefit corporation statutes also may
enable corporate managers to act on personal preferences for
climate mitigation when the costs to the firm are limited or
uncertain.123 Anecdotal examples and limited empirical work
suggest that the norms of corporate managers influence
corporate environmental behavior, but the extent of this
influence is unclear, and the opportunity for private climate
governance does not turn on the altruism of firm employees or
directors, or on the form of corporate organization.124
Initiatives directed at corporations can reduce emissions even if
they only draw on self-interest, although the opportunity is
120. See LEISEROWITZ ET AL., supra note 107, at 7.
121. See GREEN, supra note 8, at 43.
122. Diane Cardwell, Home Solar Power Discounts Are Worker Perk in New
Program, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 23, 2014, at B1.
123. See, e.g., Elhauge, supra note 114 (discussing business judgment rule).
124. See, e.g., Sally S. Simpson et al., An Empirical Assessment of Corporate
Environmental Crime Control Strategies, 103 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 231, 24077
(2013) (discussing empirical results and citing studies).
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greater if altruistic or pro-social motivations also influence

corporate behavior.
Despite the motivations for corporations to reduce carbon
emissions, private governance initiatives certainly face
constraints on what they can achieve. For instance, many
firms can be expected to respond to reputational threats with
the least investment necessary to respond to the threat. As a
result, green-washing (claiming environmental benefits that do
not exist) is a concern, as is the formation of competing private
governance standards and certification systems that appear to
address consumers concerns while offering reduced
environmental benefits.125 Private oversight by NGOs has
arisen in part to address these concerns. NGOs provide third
party verification and enable firms to make credible claims
regarding their climate mitigation efforts,126 but concerns
remain about the incentives and capacity of NGOs, as well as
the independence of certifying bodies.127
Another constraint on private governance is that firms often
have incentives to invest in emissions-reducing measures only
to the extent other investments would yield lower returns for
the firm. Similarly, if firms are motivated by a desire to reduce
support for government regulation or to gain a first mover
advantage in anticipation of regulation, reductions in the
likelihood of government action may reduce firm participation
in private governance efforts. Firms also have incentives to
invest in lobbying against government regulation rather than
125. See STEERING COMM. OF STATE-OF-KNOWLEDGE ASSESSMENT OF STANDARDS &

CERTIFICATION, TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY:
THE ROLES AND LIMITATIONS OF
CERTIFICATION 9 (2012) (citing studies); Errol E. Meidinger, Environmental
Certification Programs and U.S. Environmental Law: Closer Than You Think, 31
ENVTL. L. REP. 10162 (2001).
126. See STEERING COMM., supra note 125, at 9; Lesley K. McAllister, Regulation by
Third Party Verification, 53 B.C. L. REV. 1 (2012).
127. Workplace disasters in Bangladesh revealed conflicts of interest and sham
certifications of workplace safety. See, e.g., Stephanie Clifford & Steven Greenhouse,
Fast and Flawed Inspections of Factories Abroad, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 2, 2013, at A1.
Similar concerns arose about corporate financial audits and bond ratings in the wake of
the 2001 Enron bankruptcy and the 2008 collapse of the mortgage security markets.
For popular treatments of these issues, see KURT EICHENWALD, CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS
(2005); MICHAEL LEWIS, THE BIG SHORT (2010).
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invest in private governance actions if the latter are more

costly.128
In short, although the opportunities are not boundless, sound
reasons suggest that private climate governance initiatives can
target many household and corporate actions with high
technical potential and behavioral plasticity. Perhaps most
important, the high behavioral plasticity does not require
unrealistic assumptions about household or corporate altruism.
Instead, it arises because private initiatives can address
market failures and behavioral failures, and can draw on
existing levels of support for climate mitigation.
iii. Policy Plasticity
In addition to the high technical potential and behavioral
plasticity of targeted actions, successful private governance
initiatives must have high policy plasticity, defined in the
climate mitigation context as the extent to which an
organization can implement the initiatives necessary to achieve
potential emissions reductions.129 The policy plasticity of
private governance initiatives is a function of factors such as
cost-effectiveness and the ability of private initiatives to build
on existing initiatives. For many climate initiatives, high
plasticity also requires that the initiative not depend upon
government resources or changes in public laws or policies.
Many individuals and corporations have incentives to reduce
carbon emissions, but policy plasticity often turns on the ability
of NGOs to stimulate corporations to act and to monitor their
efforts.
The important challenge for private climate
governance is how NGOs can be effective given the limited
government regulatory threat.130
128. Corporate decisions can be modelled as a choice between investing in lobbying
to reduce the costs of regulation versus investing in private governance activities. See
John W. Maxwell et al., Self-Regulation and Social Welfare: The Political Economy of
Corporate Environmentalism, 43 J.L. & ECON. 583 (2000); David Baron, Private
Politics, 12 J. ECON. & MGMT. STRAT. 31 (2003).
129. The importance of policy plasticity is often overlooked by critics of private
governance initiatives. See, e.g., Jennifer Jacquet et al., Seafood Stewardship in Crisis,
467 NATURE 28, 29 (2010) (critiquing private seafood certification); JULIA HAILES,
CARBON FOOTPRINT AND CARBON LABELLING, BRIEFING PAPER (on file with The
Columbia Journal of Environmental Law) (critiquing carbon labeling).
130. The reasons for the formation of NGOs despite the incentives for free riding
and other obstacles are beyond the scope of this analysis. See OLSON, supra note 73.
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The ability of NGOs to engage in private governance

initiatives can be understood by viewing private governance
through the lens of new institutional economics. Ronald Coase
argued that parties will bargain to efficient outcomes if
entitlements or property rights are clear and if transaction
costs are not a barrier, and he explored the implications of
transaction costs for government policy choices.131 Coase and
many other economists start with an implicit assumption that
the relevant actor to address harmful externalities must be
either an unfettered market or government.132 Transaction
costs preclude efficient negotiations among billions of people
over the global climate, so Coaseans have proposed that
governments act as agents for their publics by selling emissions
permits or collecting Pigovian emissions taxes.133
Private governance initiatives have played a quasigovernmental role by creating entitlements in carbon emissions
through voluntary private carbon offset programs,134 but the
more important role has been to reduce transaction costs:
private actors can provide expertise and credible information
about the carbon emissions associated with organizations,
projects, and products. When emissions reductions are in an
individuals or firms interest, private initiatives reduce costs
by providing access to information and reliable service
providers.135 In other situations, NGOs may play a role closer
to a government regulator, generating information that creates
internal or external pressure for a corporation to act. The
pressure may arise from consumer purchasing decisions,
131. Ronald H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J.L. & ECON. 1 (1960).
132. See Vandenbergh & Cohen, supra note 15, at 22324; see also OSTROM, supra
note 4, at 1213.
133. Emissions trading systems have been implemented in the European Union,
Korea, California, and almost a dozen Northeastern states.
134. These private carbon offsets accounted for $523 million and 101 million tons of
GHG emissions in 2012. See ECOSYSTEM MARKETPLACE, STATE OF THE VOLUNTARY
CARBON MARKETS 2013, available at http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/
dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=9789 [http://perma.cc/ZN2F-4BDY].
135. See Mark A. Cohen & W. Kip Viscusi, The Role of Information Disclosure in
Climate Mitigation Policy, 3 CLIMATE CHANGE ECON. 1, 21 (2012). See also PRINDLE,
supra note 16; Paul C. Stern et al., Design Principles for Carbon Emissions Reduction
Programs, 44 ENVTL. SCI. & TECH. 4847, 484748 (2010).
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investor or lender concerns, regulator relationships, employee

morale, or norm-driven satisficing by managers.136
NGOs are able to act absent the power or resources of
government in part because their principal weapon is
information, and information is often cheap. For household
and corporate actions that will reduce costs, adequate
information at the point of decision may be sufficient to affect
behavior, and NGOs can be a source of general information as
well as more targeted expertise.137 For household actions that
may require some sacrifice or change of habit, more expensive
private initiatives may be required to create social norm
pressure, activate personal norms, or create monetary
incentives.138 For corporate actions that require additional
motivation, so long as a sufficient number of a firms
stakeholders favor climate mitigation, an NGO may only need
to provide the information necessary to create a perceived
threat to the firm from those stakeholders.
Access to
traditional and social media can reduce the costs to the NGO of
creating that threat. Surveys suggest that NGOs are more
trusted than corporations or government, making reputation
campaigns a credible threat in many cases.139 Some NGOs,
such as Oxfam and Greenpeace, commonly play a naming-andshaming role, driving firms to other NGOs that play a more
neutral information disclosure and counseling role, such as the
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), CDP (formerly the Carbon
Disclosure Project), and Ceres.140 Many NGOs play both roles.
On the surface, an important constraint on NGO
effectiveness is the global nature of the activities that generate
carbon emissions. Yet despite the global nature of the problem,
NGOs may be influential because a surprisingly small number
of individuals from multinational corporations and NGOs
136. See Cohen & Vandenbergh, supra note 119, at S53S63 (citing studies).
137. See GREEN, supra note 8 (emphasizing importance of NGO expertise).
138. See Ruth Greenspan Bell & Elke U. Weber, Focus on the Habits: Applying
Behavioral Insights to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, BOAO REVIEW (2014) at 56
57.
139. See EDELMAN, 2014 EDELMAN TRUST BAROMETER EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3,
available at http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/2012-edelmantrust-barometer/ [http://perma.cc/5DPV-MVRT].
140. See Tiffany Stecker, General Mills Joins Sustainability Group, Commits to
GHG Reductions, E&E NEWS PM, July 28, 2014, available at http://www.eenews.net/
eenewspm/2014/07/28/stories/1060003635 [http://perma.cc/VZM9-DU76].
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interact in a variety of settings, in effect creating a small

community with opportunities for social sanctions and rewards.
These small groups, although spread across great distances,
have many of the attributes identified by Elinor Ostrom as
necessary for resolving common pool resource problems.141
Not surprisingly, corporations often respond to pressure to
reduce emissions by bargaining around legal requirements and
transferring emissions-intensive activities to third party
suppliers. These suppliers are sometimes located across state
or national borders in jurisdictions that have fewer legal or
social constraints on carbon or other emissions. From a
Coasean perspective, the outsourcing of emissions or other
activities that may provoke social sanctions is an inefficiency
caused by the high cost of information about supply-chain
emissions.
When private governance initiatives provide
information about suppliers behavior, however, consumers
often hold corporations responsible for the entire supply chain
without regard for corporate legal boundaries or the location of
facilities.142 The normative boundary of a firm thus extends
beyond the legal boundary, and the fact that many people
include suppliers within the normative boundary of the firm
enables NGOs to use information disclosure to create
incentives for firms to manage the carbon emissions of their
suppliers, even though the suppliers are in another
jurisdiction.143 In this way, NGOs play a quasi-governmental
role regarding corporate supply chains and do so across
141. See Ostrom, supra note 91, at 6; OSTROM, supra note 4, at 88102; see also
Vandenbergh, supra note 3, at 16465 (discussing the parallels between the small
communities studied by Ostrom and others and the community of global corporate
sustainability managers and NGO managers).
142. See, e.g., Laura DAndrea Tyson, The Challenges of Running Responsible
Supply Chains, N.Y. TIMES ECONOMIX BLOG, http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/
2014/02/07/the-challenges-of-running-responsible-supply-chains/
[http://perma.cc/
M4BZ-G44T] (last visited Apr. 14 2015) (Major global retailers run the risk of harming
their brand and alienating their consumers if they purchase from factories that dont
open their doors to Better Work inspections. Reputational risk has been found to play
a critical role in improving compliance.); Steven Greenhouse, 2nd Supplier for Walmart
at Factory That Burned, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 11, 2012, at A12 (noting that despite
Walmarts demurrals that it did not know unsafe subcontractors were producing its
garments, it was facing criticism for not taking more responsibility for its entire supply
chain).
143. See Vandenbergh & Cohen, supra note 15, at 224.
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national and corporate boundaries, free from many of the limits

faced by governments.
NGOs global supply chain efforts can have substantial
effects because of the growth of global trade over the last
several decades. Supply chains now extend from retailers who
sell to consumers in countries where climate mitigation support
is strong to manufacturers in countries where climate
mitigation support is weak. As a result, climate mitigation
support in one country can lead to corporate policies and
actions that reduce carbon emissions in other countries. By
harnessing supply chains, NGOs thus extend the incentives
arising from consumer or investor preferences in one country to
carbon-emitting sources in many other countries.
Private governance initiatives also may have high policy
plasticity because of their ability to attract funding and other
support from individuals who are concerned about climate
change but are moderate to conservative free market
advocates. Recent examples include George Schultz, Henry
Paulson, and Michael Bloomberg.144
By adding new
philanthropists and advocates to the climate mitigation effort,
the use of private initiatives may increase the resources
available and may reduce the likelihood that private
governance will compete with public governance.
NGOs are also subject to important constraints that limit
policy plasticity. As with any type of organization, NGOs are
subject to the limits of the conceptual frameworks and
expertise of their managers, employees, and funders.
Organizations established and staffed to lobby governments
and to litigate may need new strategies and expertise to
develop and implement private governance initiatives.145
Employees with expertise in lobbying Congress and agencies
may need to be retrained or supplemented with employees who
understand supply chains, finance, consumer behavior, and
other areas important for private governance.
In addition, NGOs rely on private funding and on credibility
with the media and the public, and those resources are limited
and subject to conceptual blinders. When NGOs and private
144. See RISKY BUSINESS: THE ECONOMIC RISKS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE U.S.,
http://riskybusiness.org/ [http://perma.cc/9ZN8-K65A] (last visited June 15, 2015).
145. See STEERING COMM., supra note 125, at 2627.
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certification firms function in quasi-governmental roles, they

can be vulnerable to capture by special interests, much like
government regulatory agencies,146 and they may have
incentives to under- or over-state emissions reductions from
the targets of climate initiatives. Competition with other
NGOs for funding, publicity, and employees may induce NGOs
to establish duplicative programs or send multiple and
confusing messages to households and corporations about
desired conduct.
In sum, although the principal actors in private climate
governance (households, corporations, and NGOs) all face
substantial constraints, there is reason to believe that the
technical potential, behavioral plasticity, and policy plasticity
are often quite high. The remainder of Part III and all of Part
IV address the principal conceptual constraint on development
of a private climate governance strategythe assumption that
government is the only actor that can achieve major emissions
reductionsby providing examples of existing and new private
initiatives.
B. Motivating Action
A first role for private governance initiatives is to motivate
public support for GHG emissions reductions from many types
of actors. This section identifies two potential new crosscutting initiatives that could do so, but these are only
indications of the types of initiatives that could be developed in
the near term. These initiatives can be implemented promptly,
are likely to buttress many other private emissions-reduction
initiatives, and are unlikely to undermineand may well
fostergovernment mitigation measures.
i. Private Climate Prediction Market
The first cross-cutting private initiative, a private climate
prediction market, has the potential to address the mismatch
between climate science beliefs by scientists and the public.147
146. See, e.g., THE CREDIBILITY OF TRANSNATIONAL NGOS: WHEN VIRTUE IS NOT
ENOUGH (Peter A. Gourevitch et al., eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2012); see also
Clifford & Greenhouse, supra note 127.
147. See Vandenbergh et al., supra note 77, at 196667.
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257
Doubts about climate science undermine the perceived need for

emissions reductions, and many moderates, conservatives and
libertarians dismiss new government reports and scientific
studies. Government efforts to fund and communicate climate
science have been extraordinary, but recent polling suggests
that only about half of the American population clearly
understands that the climate is changing because of human
activities.148
Among some populations doubts about
anthropogenic climate change are growing even as the science
becomes more certain, and much of the doubt occurs among
individuals who strongly oppose government interference in
free markets.149 The doubt is fueled by the argument that
governments and government-funded climate scientists are not
accounting for information that is inconsistent with the climate
consensus.
Many responses involve re-framing climate
information or making it more accessible, but the private
climate governance strategy offers a promising alternative
based on changing the source of the information: the creation
of a private prediction market to assess and communicate the
implications of the climate science.150
Markets can provide information about the likelihood of
future events and can account for information that is outside of
the conventional wisdom. A government-sponsored climate
prediction market would face many of the same barriers as a
carbon price,151 but a private climate prediction market could
be established quickly and could yield information that is more
credible to moderates, conservatives, and libertarians than a
government-sponsored market. Although little research exists
148. See, e.g., ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ ET AL., YALE PROJECT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AMERICAN MIND 8 (2014), available at http://environment.
yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Climate-Change-American-Mind-April-2014.pdf
[http://perma.cc/32A8-VBPB] (finding that only forty-four percent of Americans believe
that global warming is happening, and that it is largely caused by humans).
149. Dan M. Kahan, et al., The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy
on Perceived Climate Change Risks, 2 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE 732, 73235 (2012).
151. See, e.g., Nate Silver, Best Idea of the Day: Climate Change Futures Markets,
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (Nov. 23, 2009, 11:57 PM), http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bestidea-of-day-climate-change-futures/
[http://perma.cc/WW48-PXJ7]
(proposing
government-sponsored climate change futures market); Shi-Ling Hsu, A Prediction
Market for Climate Outcomes, 83 U. COLO. L. REV. 179, 183 (2011) (proposing a
government climate prediction market linked to tradable carbon emission permits
under a government cap-and-trade system).
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on the effects of market information on these individuals, many

support market solutions to problems and may find markets to
be credible sources of information. The market could enable
individuals to trade predictions about the global average
temperature and other relevant outcomes, and marketgenerated information may be more credible to doubters than
government-generated information. A prediction market also
may be a valuable addition to climate debates, enabling private
individuals and politicians to argue that opponents should put
their money where their mouth is.
To address the need for prompt action, an initial climate
market could take the form of an experimental effort along the
lines of the Iowa presidential prediction market.152 Trading
could occur over the types of predictions that matter for global
climate change, such as the global average temperature or sea
level in 2020, 2030, or 2100, with the current market value of
the prediction signaling the likelihood of the outcome.
Experience with other prediction markets suggests that a
climate prediction market could provide an accurate, credible,
and widely-disseminated signal about the status of the climate
science. The predictions could become the subject of political
debates, media accounts, and daily discussions among millions
of individuals.
ii. Private Climate Legacy Registry
The second cross-cutting initiative, a private climate legacy
registry, is designed to motivate support for carbon emissions
reductions by addressing the fact that individuals in this
generation will bear much of the cost of mitigation, but they
know that future generations will lack information about who
acted in ways that merit social sanctions or rewards.153
Anecdotal examples suggest that individuals care about their
legacy.
How many philanthropists have established
universities or foundations in their names in the hope that
their legacy will continue long after their death? How many
people have tried to distance themselves from ancestors whose
actions are now considered shameful?
Recent empirical
153. See Michael P. Vandenbergh & Kaitlin T. Raimi, Climate Change: Leveraging
Legacy, 41 ECOLOGY L.Q. (forthcoming 2015).
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research supports this point: if given the choice to buy a better

reputation after they die or during their lifetime, on average,
individuals would allocate roughly $40 to their reputation after
they die and $60 to their reputation during their lifetime.154
Individuals know that their behavior in this generation will
not be known to future generations, however, so an
intergenerational information problem undermines the effects
of legacy on individuals and organizations motivation to
reduce GHG emissions. A private climate registry could
facilitate intergenerational accountability by harnessing legacy
concerns. The registry could overcome the information problem
by collecting, storing, and making available data on the climate
views and actions of individuals, policymakers, corporations,
universities, and other institutions. For example, the general
public, corporations, and politicians could be given the chance
to record information about their actions and policy views in
light of the climate science. Advocacy groups also could gather
and submit publicly available information on corporations and
politicians from public media sources and emissions databases.
To influence behavior, the registry would need to manage,
store and disclose the information in a way that would assure
individuals and organizations today that future generations
would know how they responded to the climate science. If the
legacy-related information is made public now, it also may
motivate emissions reductions through social sanctions and
rewards. Readers who are dubious about the effects of legacy
on climate views and behavior can try this experiment: when
engaged in a discussion about climate change, offer to have the
participants write down their names and their beliefs about
whether climate change is occurring and whether investments
should be made today to reduce emissions. Let the participants
know that if a legacy registry is formed, the documents will be
sent to the registry to be made available to future generations.
Although it is difficult to assess the technical potential and
behavioral plasticity of a private climate registry, the policy
plasticity is high. Many governments would face political and
other obstacles, but private organizations could establish a
climate legacy registry quickly and at low cost.155 In addition,
154. Id. at 10 (reporting results of empirical study).
155. Id. at 6.
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as with other private governance initiatives, the legacy registry

need not affect a majority of the population to have an effect.
Further research is needed on how a registry will influence
individual and corporate behavior, but even if it only increases
the likelihood that a small percentage of mitigation supporters
will act on their views or shifts the views of a small percentage
of moderates, it will increase the pool of motivated actors at low
cost.
IV. CORPORATE AND HOUSEHOLD EMISSIONS
In addition to cross-cutting initiatives designed to motivate
many types of actors, private climate governance initiatives
also target specific source categories. Part IV.A examines
corporate GHG emissions initiatives. Part IV.B focuses on
households.
A. Corporate Emissions
As discussed at the outset, firms such as Microsoft have
responded to a variety of pressures by announcing that they
will become carbon neutral.156 The influences on firm behavior
discussed in Part III.A shape the types of corporate initiatives
that may succeed, but reasonable skepticism exists about
whether firms will reduce emissions or simply engage in green-
156. See Robert Bernard, Going Carbon Neutral and Putting an Internal Price on
Carbon, MICROSOFT GREEN BLOG (May 7, 2012, 4:01 PM), http://blogs.msdn.com/b/
microsoft-green/archive/2012/05/08/going-carbon-neutral-and-putting-an-internal-priceon-carbon.aspx [http://perma.cc/Q8GS-K7S5]; Light, supra note 93, at 42. For others,
see GOOGLE, http://www.google.com/green/ [http://perma.cc/2JR5-NVMN] (last visited
June 15, 2015); GOLDMAN SACHS, http://www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/environ
mental-stewardship-and-sustainability/operational-impact/operational-impact-pages/
promoting-energy-efficiency.html [http://perma.cc/586H-Q8RX] (last visited June 15,
2015) (committing to carbon neutrality by 2020); Arden Jobling-Hey, People & Planet
Positive: IKEA Plans to Go Energy-Neutral by 2020, BIZENERGY (Nov. 22, 2012, 10:29
PM),
http://www.bizenergy.ca/success-stories/people-planet-positive-ikea-plans-to-goenergy-neutral-by-2020/ [http://perma.cc/WN64-L2BE] (same). Not all firms have
maintained their commitments over time. See, e.g., Matthew Wheeland, Dell Backs
Away From Carbon Neutrality, Focuses on Efficiency & E-Waste, GREENBIZ (Sept. 6,
2011, 9:28 AM), http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/09/06/dell-backs-away-carbonneutrality-focuses-efficiency-e-waste [http://perma.cc/7LQ9-N3MX] (noting Dells shift
away from carbon neutrality focus after achieving carbon neutral status in 2008).
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washing.157 The extensive examples below, often involving

participation and verification by NGOs with little interest in
signing off on green-washing, suggest that emissions
reductions are occurring at a large scale and that many
opportunities have yet to be exploited.
i. Sector-Specific Initiatives
A recent initiative demonstrates the potential for sectorspecific efforts that focus on correcting large-scale market
failures. The Carbon War Room (CWR) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by Sir Richard Branson
and other philanthropists to achieve gigaton-scale emissions
reductions.158 The CWR focuses principally on initiatives that
address market impediments to the adoption of more efficient
technologies. A CWR research group identifies opportunities,
and teams work with corporate leaders in specific industries to
coordinate emissions reduction initiatives. The CWR has five
major operations underway, four of which are directed at
corporations: shipping efficiency, renewable jet fuels, building
efficiency, and trucking efficiency. The CWR estimates that
each of these efforts will reduce emissions by a cumulative total
of more than a gigaton of CO2 over the next several decades.159
The maritime shipping industry example discussed in the
introduction demonstrates the types of market failures that
CWR targets. The shipping sector emits more than a gigaton of
CO2 each year, and emissions are projected to increase 250% by
2050. The CWR estimates that existing technologies and
operational measures could cut emissions by up to thirty
percent by addressing market failures such as suboptimal
information, split incentives, and lack of capital for retrofitting.
157. Walmart has been criticized for making corporate pledges toward carbon
neutrality while its majority shareholders and top management give generously to
groups opposing solar power. See Tim McDonnell, Walmart Is the Biggest Corporate
Solar User. Why Are Its Owners Funding Groups That Oppose Solar?, MOTHER JONES
(Oct. 9, 2014, 5:57 PM) http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/10/walmartbiggest-corporate-solar-user-why-are-its-owners-blocking-solar [http://perma.cc/8562EK95].
158. CARBON WAR ROOM, Mission & Vision, http://www.carbonwarroom.com/whatwe-do/mission-and-vision [http://perma.cc/V2YV-FCQH] (last visited June 15, 2015).
159. See CARBON WAR ROOM, Research & Intelligence, http://www.carbonwar
room.com/our-process/research [http://perma.cc/39NF-D42S] (identifying seven sectors,
each of which accounts for over a gigaton of carbon emissions).
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Split incentives based on pricing structure are particularly

important: seventy percent of bunker fuel typically is paid for
by the cargo owner, rather than the shipper, reducing the
shippers benefit from investments in more efficient shipping
technology. The CWR effort is focused on changing the way
costs are shared to increase shippers incentives to reduce fossil
fuel use.160
In addition, new opportunities exist for private initiatives in
the industry sector category. The CWR has not identified all
potential targets of opportunity at the gigaton level and has not
turned its attention to opportunities below the one gigaton
threshold. Private standards and certification programs also
can contribute additional sector-based emissions reductions.
For example, forestry standards and certification programs and
private efforts targeting palm oil seek to reduce carbon
emissions from deforestation.161
These initiatives can be
expanded and the focus on carbon emissions increased, and
additional agricultural and industrial sectors could be subject
to private standards and certification initiatives.
ii. Carbon Disclosure
Disclosure of carbon footprints is another promising approach
for private initiatives. Disclosure is often inexpensive and can
harness existing drivers for corporate carbon emissions
reductions. The examples below examine carbon disclosure at
the corporate, lender and investor, project, and product levels.
a. Corporate Carbon Footprints
Several initiatives encourage corporations to disclose and
reduce their corporate carbon footprints. Private organizations
such as CDP, Ceres, and GRI focus on increasing the collection
and disclosure of reliable emissions data. CDP was established
in 2000 through the collaborative efforts of U.K. businessman
Paul Dickenson, institutional investors, and philanthropic
foundations, and it uses investor pressure to create incentives
160. See CARBON WAR ROOM, supra note 158; ERIC HEISMAN & CLAIRE DANIELLE
TOMKINS, A GIGATON ANALYSIS OF THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY 21 (2011), available at
http://www.carbonwarroom.com/sites/default/files/reports/2011%20Shipping%20Report
%204.26.11_0.pdf [http://perma.cc/P6DQ-57NV].
161. See STEERING COMM., supra note 125.
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for firms to disclose and reduce emissions.162 Over 700

institutional investors with $92 trillion in assets support the
CDP, and it collects and discloses self-reported climate-change
data from over 4,000 corporations and other entities.163 The
responding corporations include more than 1,000 of the largest
global corporations and include roughly 70% of the Standard &
Poors 500.164 The CDP information disclosure initiatives
provide corporations and investors with reputational and other
incentives to reduce carbon emissions.165
A number of opportunities exist to expand the types of
information collection and disclosure efforts conducted by CDP
and other organizations. For instance, the CDP has already
reached many of the largest firms around the world, but
hundreds of additional large firms could be subject to further
pressure to participate, and thousands of the next tier of
smaller firms could be the subject of additional initiatives.
Efforts ranging from targeting by socially responsible
investors, to NGO-led consumer reputation campaigns, to
boycotts and other advocacy initiatives are all possible. A
recent example is General Mills 2014 announcement that it
would participate in a Ceres disclosure initiative and join the
CDP. These commitments occurred after a protest by Oxfam
America at the New York Stock Exchange.166 In addition, as
162. See Leslie Kaufman, Emissions Disclosure As a Business Virtue, N.Y. TIMES,
Dec. 29, 2009, at B1. CDP began collecting carbon emissions information in 2002 by
sending information requests on behalf of 35 institutional investors holding assets of
$4.5 trillion to corporations included in the FT500 Global Index. It then published the
data. See CARBON DISCLOSURE PROJECT, CARBON FINANCE AND THE GLOBAL EQUITY
MARKETS (Feb. 2003), available at https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/cdp_report.pdf
[https://perma.cc/6JJT-WXJG].
163. Climate Change Program, CDP, https://www.cdp.net/en-US/Programmes/
Pages/CDP-Investors.aspx [https://perma.cc/XKB4-QQBN] (last visited June 15, 2015).
164. See CDP, USE OF INTERNAL CARBON PRICE BY COMPANIES AS INCENTIVE AND
STRATEGIC PLANNING TOOL 9 (Dec. 2013), available at https://www.cdp.net/CDP
Results/companies-carbon-pricing-2013.pdf [https://perma.cc/G8X2-S9F4]. The CDP
reports that 403 of the Global 500 participate, as do 334 of the S&P 500. See CDP,
INVESTMENT, TRANSFORMATION AND LEADERSHIP: CDP S&P 500 CLIMATE CHANGE
REPORT 2013 (2013), available at https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/CDP-SP500-climatereport-2013.pdf [https://perma.cc/9UTH-BN4K].
165. See CDP USE OF INTERNAL CARBON PRICE BY COMPANIES AS INCENTIVE AND
STRATEGIC PLANNING TOOL, supra note 164 at 8; see also Tyson, supra note 142
(emphasizing the influence of reputational considerations on corporate actions
regarding supply chains).
166. See Stecker, supra note 140.
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discussed in more detail in the supply chain section below, the

CDP could continue to expand supply chain reporting efforts as
a way to extend pressure to tens of thousands of small- and
medium-sized firms around the world.
b. Investor and Lender Carbon Footprints
A related set of carbon disclosure initiatives target investors
(including investment firms as well as pension funds,
university endowments, foundations, religious organizations,
and other organizations that have large stock holdings) and
lenders. NGOs have developed campaigns to induce investors
to disclose the carbon footprint of their investments. In turn,
this has created opportunities for new types of private
businesses, such as TruCost, a U.K. firm that assesses
corporate carbon footprints and has released an analysis of the
carbon footprint of investment firms portfolios.167
Disclosure campaigns are often coupled with pressure to
divest,168 and in the last several years investors have pledged
to divest more than $50 billion in assets from the fossil fuel
sector.169 In addition, at least one NGO has participated in the
formation of a low-carbon index fund.170 These initiatives may
167. See TRUCOST, CARBON COUNTS 2007: THE CARBON FOOTPRINTS OF UK
INVESTMENT FUNDS (2007), available at http://www.trucost.com/published-research/19/
carbon-counts-2007-the-carbon-footprints-of-uk-investment-funds
[http://perma.cc/
CF5V-GCJC].
168. See What Is Fossil Fuel Divestment?, FOSSIL FREE, http://gofossilfree.org/whatis-fossil-fuel-divestment/ [http://perma.cc/76X2-WXS7] (last visited June 15, 2015);
Mike Scott, Pension Funds Face New Era of Disclosure on Climate Risks, FORBES (Feb.
3, 2014, 12:16 PM), http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2014/02/03/pension-fundsface-new-era-of-disclosure-on-climate-risks/ [http://perma.cc/7YHC-GZ5J] (highlighting
disclosure efforts of CDP and Asset Owners Disclosure Project, an Australia-based
NGO).
169. See John Schwartz, Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortune, Will Divest Charity of
Fossil Fuels, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 22, 2014, at A3; Logan Yonavjak, Divesting from Fossil
Fuels Means a Cleaner, Safer, and More Resilient Future, FORBES (July 29, 2013, 1:00
AM), http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2013/07/29/divesting-from-fossil-fuels-meansa-cleaner-safer-and-more-resilient-future/ [http://perma.cc/VSS3-D24J]; Stanford to
Divest from Coal Companies, STANFORD NEWS SERVICE (May 6, 2014)
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2014/pr-divest-coal-trustees-050714.html
[http://perma.cc/K34X-MPKD].
170. See, e.g., Mike Scott, Fossil Fuel-Free Index Will Help Investors Manage
Climate Risk, FORBES (May 1, 2014, 7:44 AM), http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/
2014/05/01/fossil-fuel-free-index-will-help-investors-manage-climate-risks/
[http://
perma.cc/YWK9-GHHH].
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not involve sufficiently large amounts to adversely affect share

prices, but they send normative signals that may influence
corporate behavior in the near term, and they could affect
share prices in the long term if they gain momentum.171
Less commonly discussed are new efforts by NGOs to
estimate and disclose the carbon footprint of lenders loan
portfolios. These initiatives are designed to motivate lenders to
reduce their direct emissions and the emissions of their
corporate borrowers. For instance, the Rainforest Action
Network has estimated and disclosed the carbon footprints of
the five largest Canadian banks lending portfolios.172
Similarly, two Australian NGOs conducted a campaign in 2014
to induce retail consumers to move their bank accounts from
several banks with large carbon footprints.173 Disclosure
campaigns also may have played a role in several banks
decision not to fund a new coal port in Australia.174 These
lender initiatives are nascent efforts, and lender carbon
disclosure represents a promising area for new private
initiatives.175
c. Project Carbon Footprints
Other private initiatives have focused on disclosure at the
project level. For example, advocacy groups have targeted
major banks with naming and shaming campaigns based on
171. See Eric Hendey, Does Divestment Work?, HARV. POL. REV.,
http://www.iop.harvard.edu/does-divestment-work [http://perma.cc/44MP-C5EC] (last
visited June 15, 2015); Jacob Park & Sonia Kowal, Socially Responsible Investing 3.0,
18 GEO. PUB. POLY REV. 17, 18 (2013) (noting that socially-responsible investors
account for over $3.7 trillion).
172. See RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK, FINANCING GLOBAL WARMING: CANADIAN
BANKS AND FOSSIL FUELS (2008), available at http://ran.org/sites/default/files/
financing_global_warming.pdf [http://perma.cc/CZV8-JJWD].
173. Id. See UTOPIES, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT LABELING OF BANKING
PRODUCTS 3 (June 2008), available at https://www.financite.be/sites/default/
files/references/files/719.pdf [https://perma.cc/YY28-SEXZ]; Oliver Milman, Fossil Fuel
Divestment: Climate Change Activists Take Aim at Australian Banks, THE GUARDIAN
(Oct. 17, 2014, 7:51 PM), http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/18/fossilfuel-divestment-climate-change-activists-take-aim-at-australias-banks [http://perma.cc/
LSJ3-H7KD].
174. See Campaigners Urge Consumer Divestment from Australian Big Banks,
CLIMATEWIRE, Oct. 21, 2014, http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060007611/
feed [http://perma.cc/5833-RE9C].
175. For an overview, see Vandenbergh, supra note 3, at 15152.
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the environmental effects of the banks project finance lending

in the developing world.176 The efforts of the advocacy groups,
with support from the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund, contributed to the formation of the Equator Principles, a
private standard that requires participants to disclose the
environmental harms of the projects funded through project
finance loans. The vast majority of the project finance lending
at a global level is now conducted by banks that have agreed to
comply with the Equator Principles. As with many private
governance initiatives, the effects of the project-level disclosure
on carbon emissions are unclear, but the types of projects
subject to Equator Principles disclosure (e.g., pipelines and
other major infrastructure projects), suggest large effects if the
disclosure affects decision making.177
In addition, in 2008 several leading banks in the U.S.
partnered with electric utilities and NGOs to form the Carbon
Principles, private standards that require participating banks
to include carbon emissions in the due diligence and disclosure
processes involved in the financing of new U.S. power plants.178
The signatory banks pledge to adopt a rigorous environmental
diligence process,179 to evaluate clients management of carbon
emissions and climate-change risks, to consider issues that
could arise from future climate regulations, and to decline
financing if potential clients fail to provide the requested
176. See TRUCOST, supra note 167.

177. See Ariel Meyerstein, Transnational Private Financial Regulation and
Sustainable Development: An Empirical Assessment of the Implementation of the
Equator Principles, 45 N.Y.U. J. INTL L. & POL. 487 (2013); Andrew Hardenbrook,
Note, The Equator Principles:
The Private Financial Sectors Attempt at
Environmental Responsibility, 40 VAND. J. TRANSNATL L. 197 (2007).
178. Press Release, CitiGroup Inc., The Carbon Principles, Leading Wall Street
Banks Establish the Carbon Principles (Feb. 4, 2008), available at
http://www.citigroup.com/citi/news/2008/080204a.htm
[http://perma.cc/FJH4-ZKGB].
As of 2014, three others have adopted the Carbon Principles. Three Major Banks Adopt
Carbon Principles, 21 ELECTRICITY J. 5 (2008). Signatories issue periodic reports
demonstrating implementation. Id.; see also Benjamin J. Richardson, Reforming
Climate Finance Through Investment Codes of Conduct, 27 WIS. INTL L.J. 483, 499
(2009).
179. Fossil Fuel Generation Financing Enhanced Environmental Diligence Process,
THE CARBON PRINCIPLES, http://www.morganstanley.com/about/press/files//1500519_
carbon_principles_diligence_2.pdf [http://perma.cc/F6PF-ACF9] (last visited June 15,
2015).
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information.180 The banks also commit to assess clients efforts

to reduce carbon emissions and to promote energy efficiency
and renewable energy production.181
Although these provisions do not prohibit funding of fossil
fuel-fired power plants, they signal to utilities that lenders
anticipate future restrictions on carbon emissions and will give
serious consideration to the climate implications of plant
emissions in the lending process. The Carbon Principles are
limited to electric power generation within the United States,
but there is room for growth: this type of initiative could be
expanded to include additional lenders and additional
countries, and to focus on other carbon-intensive industries.
d. Product Carbon Footprints
Private product carbon labeling is another area that is ripe
for expansion.182
Government-sponsored carbon labeling
systems exist in several countries, but a government carbon
labeling program in the U.S. is probably no more likely in the
near term than a national carbon price.183 Private carbon
labeling systems have been attempted in several countries,
however, and could extend their reach by targeting firms that
stand to gain the most from demonstrating that their goods are
low-carbon as compared to competitors. Climate considerations
are included in several general eco-labels, but there is a risk
that climate concerns will be under-valued in general ecolabeling systems, and product carbon disclosure has lagged
behind corporate carbon footprint disclosure. This is due in
180. See Richardson, supra note 178, at 499.

181. Richardson, supra note 180, at 499.
182. Michael P. Vandenbergh, Thomas Dietz & Paul C. Stern, Time to Try Carbon
Labelling, 1 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE 4, 46 (2011), available at http://www.nature.
com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1071.html
[http://perma.cc/RG2Q-D3MJ];
Cohen & Vandenbergh, supra note 119.
183. See, e.g., Carbon Footprints: Following the Footprints, THE ECONOMIST, July 2,
2011, available at http://www.economist.com/node/18750670 [http://perma.cc/H2DCA4TZ] (analyzing government-sponsored carbon labeling programs in U.K. and Japan
and a private system in France). The most recent U.S. development in governmentsponsored carbon labeling is an effort to label gas pumps by Berkeley, California. See
Samantha Clark, Berkeley Considering Climate Change Labels at Gas Pumps,
OAKLAND TRIBUNE (June 20, 2014, 5:44 AM), http://www.contracostatimes.com/
news/ci_25996416/berkeley-considering-global-warming-labels-gas-pumps
[http://
perma.cc/S8QF-KHFW].
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part to the technical challenges of calculating product-specific

labels for products that have complex or varying supply chains,
but these challenges can be overcome for many products.184 For
example, although some products have complex and varying
inputs, others have well-understood carbon footprints. These
footprints often differ dramatically from their substitutes (e.g.,
the carbon footprint of beef is often several times that of
chicken), and the differences can be communicated through a
well-designed label.185
A common assumption is that labeling will only reduce
emissions if it affects the direct purchasing behavior of retail
consumers. If so, the prospects are limited. Although some
consumers are willing to pay more for goods labelled as low
carbon, many are not.186 Not surprisingly, this leads to
pessimism about the effects of carbon labels.187
Although consumer willingness to pay is important, carbon
labeling may reduce emissions for a less intuitive reason: firms
may reduce the carbon footprint of existing products and alter
the selection of products they offer to consumers in anticipation
of product carbon footprint disclosure. Food labeling studies
suggest, for example, that consumers only respond to a limited
extent to labels, but food labeling appears to change the
products that food companies and restaurants offer to
consumers, even if the direct consumer response is limited.188
184. Sharon Shewmake et al., Carbon Triage: A Strategy for Developing a Viable
Carbon Labeling System, in HANDBOOK ON RESEARCH IN SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION
(Lucia Reisch & John Thgersen eds., forthcoming 2014); Cohen & Vandenbergh, supra
note 119, at S60S63.
185. Id.; see also N. Pelletier & P. Tyedmers, Forecasting Potential Global
Environmental Costs of Livestock Production 2000-2050, 107 PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI.
18371 (2010).
186. See, e.g., J.K. Vanclay et al., Customer Response to Carbon Labeling of
Groceries, 34 J. CONSUMER POLY 153 (2011) (discussing literature and presenting
results of empirical study); M.F. Teisl et al., Non-Dirty Dancing? Interactions Between
Eco-Labels and Consumers, 29 J. ECON. PSYCHOL. 140 (2008) (presenting results of
empirical study).
187. See HAILES, supra note 129, at 1.
188. See Shewmake et al., supra note 184, at 10 (citing studies). This has been
attributed to the Tell-Tale Heart Effect, an unrealistically high perception of the
likelihood of detection. George Loewenstein et al., Disclosure: Psychology Changes
Everything, in HANDBOOK ON RESEARCH IN SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION (Lucia Reisch
& John Thgersen eds., 2014). See also Jane Black, Chain Restaurants Such as KFC,
Uno and Starbucks Are Finding That Calories Count, WASH. POST, Jan. 6, 2010,
available
at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/
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In short, when retail food companies and restaurants know

that they will be disclosing nutritional information, they
appear to change the content and mix of products offered to
consumers. In a similar way, firms may respond to private
carbon labeling initiatives by looking for ways to reduce the
carbon content of products or by changing the selection of
products offered to consumers.
Many firms will not participate in a voluntary private carbon
labeling initiative, but carbon labeling will be attractive to
firms that anticipate competitive advantages from assessing
and disclosing the carbon footprint of their products. For
instance, a firm that offers fruit, vegetables, meat, or dairy
products with a lower carbon footprint than competitors and
sells through organic food stores may opt into a private carbon
labeling program. Other firms may participate because of more
generalized concerns about their reputation with consumers,
investors, or lenders.
iii. Supply Chain Contracting
Supply chain contracting requirements can extend the reach
of the carbon disclosure initiatives discussed above and can
serve as a private governance initiative in their own right.
Supply chains account for roughly three quarters of the carbon
emissions associated with goods in the U.S,189 so the technical
potential for effective supply chain efforts is enormous. The
behavioral plasticity is also high in many cases. Many
corporations already include environmental provisions in
supply chain contracts, and one study concluded that more
than half of the largest firms in eight sectors required their
corporate suppliers to meet environmental requirements
imposed by the buying firm.190 In some cases these provisions
simply require compliance with applicable environmental laws,
AR2010010500841.html [http://perma.cc/RU7D-HZUJ] (Restaurant chains across the
country are reformulating fat- and calorie-laden items and introducing lighter, more
healthful options in preparation for federal menu labeling requirements.).
189. See H. Scott Matthews et al., The Importance of Carbon Footprint Estimation
Boundaries, 42 ENVTL. SCI. & TECH. 5839, 5840 (2008) (noting that direct emissions
and purchased energy emissions account for roughly twenty-six percent of carbon
emissions).
190. See Michael P. Vandenbergh, The New Wal-Mart Effect: The Role of Private
Contracting in Global Governance, 54 UCLA L. REV. 913, 91617 (2007).
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but in others they require actionssuch as achieving energy

efficiency or carbon emissions reductionsnot required by
government regulations.
Firms may impose these
requirements on suppliers for a variety of reasons. For
instance, energy efficiency or carbon emissions reduction
requirements may enable a firm to demand lower prices from
suppliers, may improve other aspects of supply chain
management, or may enable a firm to prepare for a future
government carbon price. Firms also may be concerned about
reputational harms that may arise from being held socially, if
not legally, accountable for the emissions of their suppliers in
developed and developing countries.
a. Developed Countries
In recent years, a number of environmental NGOs have
worked with large firms in developed countries to adopt
corporate carbon supply chain requirements.191
Not
surprisingly, consumer-facing corporations have engaged in
much of the early activity. An example is Wal-Marts 2010
joint announcement with the Environmental Defense Fund, in
which Wal-Mart committed to reduce CO2 emissions from its
global supply chain by 20 million tons.192 Similarly, the
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has an initiative
underway to reduce the energy consumption of clothing retailer
H&M,193 as well as to reduce the overall environmental impact
191. See CDP, COLLABORATIVE ACTION ON CLIMATE RISK: SUPPLY CHAIN REPORT
201314 (2014), available at https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/CDP-Supply-ChainReport-2014.pdf [https://perma.cc/U67P-X7JT]; THE CARBON TRUST, CARBON
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN: THE NEXT STEP FOR BUSINESS 1420 (2006),
avaliable at http://www.carbontrust.com/resources/reports/footprinting/carbon-foot
prints-in-the-supply-chain-the-next-step-for-business [http://perma.cc/R626-VDL9].
192. Walmart Announces Goal to Eliminate 20 Million Metric Tons of Greenhouse
Gas Emissions from Global Supply Chain, WALMART (Feb. 25, 2010), http://
news.walmart.com/news-archive/2010/02/25/walmart-announces-goal-to-eliminate-20million-metric-tons-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-global-supply-chain
[http://
perma.cc/GSH8-QN59]; Vandenbergh, supra note 3, at 158 (comparing reductions to
roughly half of iron and steel sector emissions).
193. Frances Beinecke, Wal-Mart and H&M Commit to Greening Their Textile
Supply Chain, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (Sept. 22, 2010) http://switch
board.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/wal-mart_and_hm_commit_to_gree.html [http://perma.
cc/6ZBV-3P6N].
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of Apples suppliers.194 In 2007, Coca-Cola and WWF launched

an initiative aimed at reducing the environmental impact of
Coca-Colas global production chain, with a primary goal of
reducing the carbon embedded in Coca-Cola drinks by twentyfive percent by 2020.195 WWF also has worked with LEGO to
reduce LEGOs supply chain carbon emissions.196
Supply chain initiatives also have extended beyond
consumer-facing companies to some extent. For instance, in
2012 Cisco released its first Corporate Social Responsibility
Supply Chain Report, which notes that Cisco asked suppliers to
participate in the CDPs carbon emissions surveys. In the first
year, 50% of preferred suppliers responded to that request, and
Cisco has announced a goal of 100% participation by preferred
194. Linda Greer, NRDC Work on Apple Computers Supply Chain, NATURAL
RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (Feb. 22, 2012) http://switchboard.nrdc.org/
blogs/lgreer/nrdc_work_on_apple_computers_s.html
[http://perma.cc/9WG6-6DCQ].
NRDC has been active in the cloud of commitments initiative associated with Rio+20.
See Commitments, CLOUD OF COMMITMENTS, http://www.cloudofcommitments.org/
commitments/ [http://perma.cc/TZC2-76QP] (last visited June 15, 2015). NRDC also
publishes issue reports on carbon-saving opportunities in various industries along with
advice for firms. See, e.g., KAREN LAW & MICHAEL CHAN, NATIONAL RESOURCES
DEFENSE COUNCIL, CARBON REDUCTION OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CALIFORNIA
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY (2013), available at http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/californiapetroleum-carbon-reduction-IB.pdf [http://perma.cc/C7CY-K6QH].
195. Partnerships: Coca-Cola, WORLD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION, http://www.world
wildlife.org/partnerships/coca-cola [http://perma.cc/B8YP-QJJJ] (last visited June 15,
2015).
196. Morten Vestberg, LEGO Group Partners with WWF and Focuses on Suppliers
to Reduce Climate Impact, WORLD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION (Nov. 27, 2013),
http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/the_lego_group_climate_savers_partnership_271
12013.pdf [http://perma.cc/2ZNY-HYK4]. LEGO has announced a goal of reducing its
non-supply chain emissions by 10% (or 10,000 tons) from the 2012 levels, but roughly
90% of LEGOs emissions arise from its supply chain. Id. For additional examples, see
Volvo Group and WWF Expand Climate Partnership, WORLD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
(Feb. 17, 2012), http://wwf.panda.org/?203564/Volvo-Group-and-WWF-expand-climatepartnership [http://perma.cc/Q6V3-FTPE]; Nike Partners with WWF and Center for
Energy and Climate Solutions to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, WORLD WILDLIFE
FOUNDATION (Oct. 2, 2001), https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/nike-partnerswith-wwf-and-center-for-energy-and-climate-solutions-to-reduce-greenhouse-gasemissions [https://perma.cc/Y52E-BMLY]; LOreal Group: Using CDP to Sustainably
Manage Supply Chains and Reduce Carbon Emissions Across the Product Lifecycle,
CDP, https://www.cdp.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/Pages/case-study-loreal.aspx [https://
perma.cc/4729-FBHQ] (last visited June 15, 2015); WWF Climate Savers Partner Yingli
Green Energy Goes Beyond Targets for Reducing Emissions, WORLD WILDLIFE
FOUNDATION (JAN. 9, 2015), http://wwf.panda.org/?236730/Climate-Savers-Yinglitargets [ http://perma.cc/DS5F-XSUD].
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suppliers. Cisco also has asked suppliers to set reduction

targets for GHG emissions and begin achieving those goals.197
Supply chain contracting initiatives could be expanded in
several ways. As discussed above, in the U.S., suppliers
account for most of the GHG emissions associated with
consumer products, so the technical potential of domestic
supply chain contracting initiatives is substantial.198
Incentives for supply chain contracting turn in part on whether
a firm discloses the emissions of its suppliers, and the CDP
could increase its emphasis on including supply chain
emissions in the carbon disclosures of large corporations. An
important step in this direction is to extend the corporate
carbon reporting managed by CDP and other private
organizations. Reporting currently includes the emissions from
corporations facilities (often called Scope 1 emissions) and the
power plants that supply energy to the facilities (Scope 2
emissions), but expanding it to the corporations suppliers
(Scope 3 emissions) would increase incentives for corporations
to reduce their suppliers emissions.199
Efforts to extend reporting to supply chains can require
complex assessments to calculate and allocate emissions, but
initial efforts demonstrate that doing so is often feasible. Dell
Computers recent experience is an example. Several years ago
Dell joined CDPs supply chain program as part of Dells effort
to achieve forty percent absolute carbon emissions reductions
by 2015.
As part of this effort, Dell adopted baseline
expectations for suppliers in 2007. Suppliers were already
expected to comply with environmental management
standards, but Dell asked suppliers to include GHG emissions
in their quarterly reviews. By 2009, over eighty percent of
Dells suppliers were meeting this requirement, and Dell then
added new guidelines for suppliers, including reporting of
emissions to CDP, setting of public goals to reduce operational
GHG impacts, and, for Tier 1 suppliers, establishing GHG
197. CISCO, 2012 CISCO CSR REPORT, avaliable at http://www.cisco.com/assets/

csr/pdf/CSR-Report-2012-Supply-Chain.pdf [http://perma.cc/3C28-HF5H].
198. See, e.g., C. HENDRICKSON, LESTER LAVE & H.S. MATTHEWS, ENVIRONMENTAL
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF GOODS AND SERVICES: AN INPUT-OUTPUT APPROACH
(2006).
199. See CDP, SUPPLY CHAIN REPORT, supra note 191, at 68.
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management and reporting requirements for the suppliers

supply chains. Although these guidelines were not legallyenforceable requirements, Dell communicated to suppliers that
[f]ailure to meet these requirements can impact your supplier
ranking and potentially diminish your ability to compete for
Dells business. With this warning, the supplier response rate
was ninety-four percent.200
b. Developing Countries
In addition to extending emissions reduction pressure to
smaller firms in developed countries, initiatives that increase
supply chain carbon disclosure and contracting requirements
also may be an important way to create incentives for
emissions reductions from China, India, and other developing
countries.201 For instance, Chinas exports to the U.S. and
Europe account for a large share of Chinas emissions.202 Many
Chinese suppliers are now faced with corporate buyers who are
insisting on carbon reductions in supply chain contracting. The
massive scale of global supply chains (for example, Wal-Mart
has 10,000 suppliers in China alone), and inefficiencies among
suppliers in many developing countries suggest that the
technical potential and behavioral plasticity are high.203
Supply-chain pressures also can create constituencies in
developing countries that support policies to reduce carbon
emissions. If suppliers have incentives to sell goods that have
a lower carbon footprint to corporate buyers, they also are
200. Collaboration Delivers Targets and Mutually Beneficial Energy Savings, CDP,
https://www.cdp.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/Pages/Case-Study-Dell.aspx [https://perma.cc/
Y6N4-UUR9] (last visited June 15, 2015).
201. See Vandenbergh, supra note 27, at 90510.
202. See Bin Shui & Robert C. Harriss, The Role of CO2 Embodiment in US-China
Trade, 34 ENERGY POLY 4063, 4066 (2006). In 2007, a quarter of Chinas carbon
emissions were due to exports to the U.S. and Europe. See Jeremy Lovell, Quarter of
Chinas Carbon Emissions Due to Exports, REUTERS (Oct. 19, 2007, 5:46 AM),
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/10/19/environment-climate-china-exports-dc-idU
SL1874784520071019/ [http://perma.cc/8TRV-BKLM]. Chinese domestic consumption
has increased in recent years as a proportion of its GDP, suggesting that Chinese
exports are likely to be shrinking as a share of Chinas total carbon emissions.
203. Vandenbergh, supra note 190, at 93840; see also Stephanie Rosenbloom, WalMart Unveils Plan to Make Supply Chain Greener, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 25, 2010, at B3;
Wan Xu & David Stanway, Wal-Mart, in China, Pushes Suppliers Down Green Path,
REUTERS (Oct. 25, 2012, 4:57 AM), http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/uswalmart-china-idUSBRE89O0CE20121025 [http://perma.cc/5D5C-ECWQ].
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likely to have incentives to support low-carbon sources of

electricity and other inputs into their products, and to lobby
their governments to support public investments in these
areas. Their governments, in turn, will face fewer barriers to
making emissions reduction commitments in international
agreements,204 and movement by developing countries can
increase the pressure on reluctant developed countries.205
Supply chain contracting initiatives also can address an
important equity issue: supply chain contracting can be a way
to reduce the emissions from developing countries that arise
from making goods for use in developed countries. Some
developed countries have reduced emissions by off-shoring the
most carbon-intensive production to developing countries. For
example, the U.K. has reduced its GHG emissions below 1990
levels if only emissions from sources within the country are
included, but if emissions attributable to the goods consumed
in the U.K. are included, total GHG emissions have
increased.206 Supply chain contracting and carbon disclosure
initiatives may reduce incentives for off-shoring carbonintensive production and may increase the flow of low-carbon
technologies, financial resources, and practices to suppliers in
developing countries.207
In short, corporate global supply chain initiatives have the
potential to turn the growth of global trade into an advantage,
extending the influence of consumer, investor, lender and other
pressure for emissions reductions from firms in developed
countries to suppliers in developing countries. The initiatives
also can provide a vehicle for retail consumers and corporate
204. Vandenbergh, supra note 27, at 90910.
205. Sovereignty and equity issues are concerns, but they may be less problematic
for private initiatives than for international public governance requirements. A
private supply chain contract does not implicate the sovereignty issues of the home
country of either party, reducing concerns arising from national interests and identity.
Similarly, if a rich country demands emissions reductions from a poor country, equity
concerns are more central than if two private parties are contracting over the carbon
footprint of goods.
206. DAVID WATSON & STEPHAN MOLL, ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS AND
DISADVANTAGES OF ECONOMIC SPECIALISATION WITHIN GLOBAL MARKETS, AND
IMPLICATIONS FOR SCP MONITORING 2 (2008), available at http://scp.eionet.europa.eu/
publications/SCORE/wp/score_paper [http://perma.cc/58J9-QSHW].
207. Efforts to discourage leakage through border allowances and similar measures
face constraints from the global trade regime. Cohen & Vandenbergh, supra note 119,
at S58S62.
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275
buyers in developed countries to take responsibility for the

emissions associated with producing the goods they buy from
developing countries.
iv. Benefit Corporations
A new form of corporation has emerged in the last decade
that offers additional opportunities for private climate
governance. In more than two dozen states, new laws allow the
formation of benefit corporations, which can be incorporated
with the express goal of pursuing environmental or other social
goals in addition to profits.208 A number of benefit corporations
already are pursuing carbon emissions reductions. An example
is Method, a consumer products company that is organized as a
benefit corporation and has made substantial commitments to
carbon emissions reductions.209 Methods products are sold at
Target and other major retailers.
Only limited research is available on the effects of the benefit
corporation form of organization on firm behavior, but the
explicit inclusion of environmental objectives as a firm goal
may induce benefit corporations to be more responsive to
carbon disclosure efforts than other firms. Private climate
governance initiatives could induce existing benefit
corporations to pursue carbon emissions reductions.
In
addition, new firms may be formed as benefit corporations in
sectors where pursuit of the profit maximization goal has
particularly large effects on carbon emissions. For instance,
business and social entrepreneurs could form new benefit
corporations to sell products that compete with products whose
emissions arise in part from planned obsolescence (e.g.,
consumer products ranging from laptops and cell phones to
socks) or from freshness dates that are designed more to move
208. See State by State Legislative Status, BENEFIT CORP INFORMATION CENTER,
http://benefitcorp.net/state-by-state-legislative-status
[http://perma.cc/5Z3Z-AQD7]
(last visited June 15, 2015); Kyle Westaway & Dirk Sampselle, The Benefit
Corporation: An Economic Analysis with Recommendations to Courts, Boards, and
Legislatures, 62 EMORY L.J. 999 (2013); William H. Clark, Jr. & Elizabeth K. Babson,
How Benefit Corporations Are Redefining the Purpose of Business Corporations, 38 WM.
MITCHELL L. REV. 817 (2012); Dana Brackman Reiser, Benefit Corporations A
Sustainable Form of Organization?, 46 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 591 (2011).
209. See METHOD, http://methodhome.com [http://perma.cc/47JJ-HWWH] (last
visited June 15, 2015).
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products than to ensure health or quality.210 The new virtuous

fast food movement could include benefit corporations that
offer low-carbon fast food, since local and organic food may or
may not also be low carbon.211 New benefit corporations also
could be formed to compete with firms that operate in highemitting sectors and that lobby heavily against government
emissions reduction efforts, such as fossil fuels and electric
utilities.
v. Magnitude
What is the magnitude of the potential emissions reductions
that could be achieved from the corporate sector? All of the
emissions reductions provided in this Article are intended to be
rough, back-of-the-envelope examples of the potential for
private
climate
governance,
not
specific
estimates.
Nevertheless, they can provide a sense of the plausible
reductions achievable from a vigorous effort to buy a decade
with private governance initiatives. Although the totals have
varied from year to year, a recent CDP report suggested that
participating firms reduced emissions by almost 500 million
tons of CO2e in 2012.212 Reports by other NGOs have indicated
comparable levels of emissions reductions.213 Some of these
reductions may not be the result of private climate initiatives
or may be overstated, but the CDP report includes reductions
by only several hundred firms, and the CDP has only taken
initial steps to extend reporting to suppliers.
The CDP emissions reductions include non-energy and nonCO2 emissions. We estimate that eighty percent (400 million
210. Hope Reeves, In the Old Days, Youd Smell the Milk, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 10, 2013,
at MM16; see also THE DAILY TABLE, http://www.thedailytable.org [http://perma.cc/
T4U3-NQRR] (last visited June 15, 2015).
211. See Julie Moskin, Hold the Regret? Fast Food Seeks Virtuous Side, N.Y. TIMES,
July 26, 2014, at A1. For a discussion of private food quality regulation, see TIMOTHY
D. LYTTON, KOSHER: PRIVATE REGULATION IN THE AGE OF INDUSTRIAL FOOD (2013).
212. See CDP, CARBON ACTION REPORT 3 (2013) (stating that companies reported
reductions of 497 million tonnes of CO2e as a result of emission reduction activities
totaling US$ 11 billion in 2012), available at https://www.cdp.net/CDPResults/CDPCarbon-Action-Report-2012.pdf [https://perma.cc/2UKB-GQU9].
213. See CERES, GAINING GROUND: CORPORATE PROGRESS ON CERES ROADMAP FOR
SUSTAINABILITY (2014), available at http://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/gainingground-corporate-progress-on-the-ceres-roadmap-for-sustainability/view [http://perma.
cc/48XB-4XJA] (providing percentages on company participation).
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tons) or more of the emissions reductions represent CO2 from

fossil fuel consumption.214 It is reasonable to assume that a
major new effort by CDP and other NGOs could expand the
number of large firms, could include smaller firms, and could
extend these efforts to additional suppliers in developed and
developing countries. Additional emissions reductions could be
achieved through expansion of product carbon labeling and
efforts directed at benefit corporations. A reasonable estimate
for all of these activities combined would be an additional 500
million ton reduction of annual CO2 emissions, somewhat more
than doubling the CDP participants previous reductions.
Assessments of possible emissions reductions by private
sector firms find opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions by
more than five times this amount using only measures that
would yield net savings.215 These assessments have met with
skepticism from many economists, who believe that firms must
already have taken any cost-saving actions. More sophisticated
treatments accept that there may be cost-saving opportunities
to reduce emissions but argue that energy-cost myopia leads
214. CDP, INVESTMENT, TRANSFORMATION, AND LEADERSHIP, supra note 164, at 20
(reporting that out of 129 million metric tons of CO2e emissions reductions by S&P500
firms in 2013, 13 million were from process emissions reductions and 3 million from
fugitive emissions reduction). Much of the remaining 113 million tons (88%) was due
to energy efficiency improvements and installation of low-carbon energy sources.
Considerable uncertainty remains, however, as almost half of the emissions reductions
are lumped together as Other. Because most non-agricultural emissions of non-CO2
greenhouse gases are process and fugitive emissions from the fossil fuel and chemical
industries, we estimate that the non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions reductions
included under Other are less than the reductions of process and fugitive emissions.
We further assume that the composition of emissions reductions in the S&P 500 is
representative of emissions reduction by all firms. Therefore, we argue that assigning
twenty percent of reported emissions reduction to non-CO2 emissions is a conservative
estimate. Nonetheless, we recommend treating this estimate with caution.
215. See, e.g., MCKINSEY CO., PATHWAYS TO A LOW-CARBON ECONOMY, at 85, 9091,
10809 (2009) (finding that improving energy efficiency in the iron and steel industry
could reduce CO2 emissions by 550 million tons per year by 2020 with net savings of
$1.4 billion (550 tons times 2 Euro per ton at an exchange rate of $1.25 per Euro); the
energy efficiency, co-generation of heat and power, and switching from fuel oil to
natural gas in the chemical industry could reduce emissions by more than 600 million
tons per year with net savings of $2.2 billion (600 million tons times 3 Euro per ton);
and energy efficiency measures in commercial and residential buildings could reduce
emissions 1.6 billion tons by 2020 with net savings of $50 billion (1.6 billion tons times
25 Euro per ton)); MCKINSEY CO., IMPACT OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS ON CARBON
ECONOMICS (2010) (updating the previous report for the impact of the global economic
crisis).
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decision makers to focus on up-front capital costs while

ignoring subsequent reductions in operating costs.216 Although
economists acknowledge that this myopia can lead to irrational
decisions, some argue that there must be some reason for a
firm to not make investments in emissions reductions that
would repay the original investment many times over.217 We
argue that such opportunities exist but are often overlooked,
and, although firms ultimately may identify these efficiencies
on their own, private initiatives that call attention to the
opportunities and create additional incentives to pursue them
may accelerate the process.218 Thus, we believe that firms
could easily implement measures to reduce their annual fossilfuel CO2 emissions by 500 million metric tons.
How significant are emissions reductions of this magnitude?
The 500 million ton annual total is one eighth of the 4,000
million tons needed to buy a decade of emissions reductions. It
is also equal to a regulatory approach that would reduce the
emissions of the U.S. transportation sector by a third, and it is
the equivalent of assembling a club of countries comprising
Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and Mexico (all of which are in the
top fifteen emitters of fossil-fuel CO2) that all commit to reduce
fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions by an amount equal to twentyfive percent of 2012 levels.219
B. Households
Private climate initiatives also are reducing household
emissions in the U.S. and abroad. Efforts to target households
216. NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 26771 (noting that consumers frequently resist
spending more for energy efficiency, even when it produces savings whose discounted
net present value is much greater than the initial cost).
217. Id. at 270 (A finance specialist might tell me that I am behaving
myopically . . . [but] I have a long list of reasons for my behavior.).
218. A well-known example is Nortel, which discovered only after regulations
required it to replace chlorofluorocarbon chemicals in its manufacturing process that
investing $1 million in reconfiguring its manufacturing process could save $4 million
per year in chemical purchase and disposal costs. See RICHARD E. BENEDICK, OZONE
DIPLOMACY 232 (1998).
219. See C. Le Qur et al., GLOBAL CARBON BUDGET 2014 7, EARTH SYSTEMS SCI.
DATA DISCUSSIONS 521610 (2014); Data, GLOBAL CARBON BUDGET [hereinafter
GLOBAL CARBON BUDGET], http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/Global_Carbon_Project/Global_
Carbon_Budget_2014_v1.0.xlsx [http://perma.cc/J4TJ-7RN9] (last visited June 15,
2015).
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may seem trivial on the surface, but households account for

more than a third of U.S. carbon emissions, an amount that is
equal to the contribution from the U.S. industrial sector and is
larger than the total emissions of all of the nations of Central
America, South America, and Africa combined.220 As a result,
an initiative that achieves even a one percent reduction in U.S.
household carbon emissions will reduce emissions roughly
equivalent to reducing all emissions from a medium-sized
country such as Kenya or from an important U.S. industry
sector such as the ammonia industry.221
The examples
presented below demonstrate the feasibility of household
initiatives but do not suggest that the opportunity has been
fully exploited. The important conceptual moves are to view
households as a discrete source category, to direct a level of
effort toward the household sector that is appropriate given the
magnitude of the opportunity, and to be rigorous in evaluating
technical potential, behavioral plasticity, and policy
plasticity.222
i. Behavioral Wedge
Many of the most promising approaches to household
emissions target behavioral failures. A study of the technical
potential and behavioral plasticity of seventeen household
actions concluded that by 2020 behavioral initiatives could
achieve a behavioral wedge of emissions reductions, lowering
U.S. household annual emissions by twenty percent, an amount
equal to the total annual emissions of France.223 The estimate
of twenty percent emissions reductions by 2020 assumes stateof-the-art behavioral interventions but does not assume new
regulatory activity and only evaluates the opportunity in the
U.S., not the global opportunity. Even with this constraint, it
projects that the reasonably achievable emissions reductions by
220. See Vandenbergh & Steinemann, supra note 14, at 1673.

221. See id.; MCKINSEY, PATHWAYS TO A LOW-CARBON ECONOMY, supra note 215, at
13 (reporting that [i]n an optimistic caseand there is a high degree of uncertainty in
these estimates[behavioral change] could yield . . . another 3.5-5.0 billion tons per
year reduction in CO2 emissions).
222. See Vandenbergh & Steinmann, supra note 14, at 1680715.
223. See Dietz et al., supra note 13, at 1845556 (noting reductions of 123 million
metric tons of carbon, and each ton is roughly 3.67 tons of CO2).
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2020 are more than 450 million tons of fossil fuel CO2 per
year.224
The actions included in the behavioral wedge approach
include the purchase of more efficient home appliances, motor
vehicles, and heating and cooling equipment, as well as home
weatherization. The behavioral wedge actions also include
better use of existing technologies, such as more efficient
driving behavior, home thermostat use, and laundry
temperature settings.225 Policy plasticity is often high because
the behavioral wedge initiatives that target these actions are
the types of low-cost, non-coercive interventions that can be
conducted by private organizations.
A number of private governance responses that target
behavioral wedge-type actions are already underway.226 For
instance, new corporations such as Opower now offer
behavioral science-driven programs to electric utilities seeking
to reduce electricity demand from households, including
monthly feedback that compares a households energy use to
others in the community. Empirical studies suggest that these
interventions have reduced electricity use by one to three
percent.227
NGOs also have developed initiatives that target households.
The Union of Concerned Scientists Cooler Smarter campaign
encourages individuals to reduce their carbon emissions by
twenty percent in twenty days through twenty personalized
actions.228
The campaign asks participants to provide
224. This is an amount equal to the combined emissions of the U.S. petroleum
refining, iron and steel, and aluminum smelting industries. See Dietz et al., supra note
13. Over the long term, interventions that affect consumption and carbon emissions in
the emerging middle class households in China and India may present the greatest
opportunities. See, e.g., SIQI ZHENG ET AL., THE GREENNESS OF CHINA: HOUSEHOLD
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 2425 (Natl Bureau of Econ.
Research, Working Paper No. 15621, 2009).
225. Dietz et al., supra note 72, at tbl.1.
226. Many NGOs developed documents to assist in the design of household
initiatives. See, e.g., AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR ENERGY EFFICIENT ECONOMIES, http://
www.aceee.org/ [http://perma.cc/6N6C-H84K] (last visited June 15, 2015).
227. See ED CARROLL ET AL., FRANKLIN ENERGY, RESEARCH STUDY: RESIDENTIAL
ENERGY USE BEHAVIOR CHANGE PILOT (2009), available at http://www.climate
access.org/sites/default/files/Carroll_Residential%20Energy%20Use%20Behavior%20C
hange%20Pilot.pdf [http://perma.cc/WF3N-RVQW].
228. UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, http://www.coolersmarter.org [http://
perma.cc/A3CY-VZHJ] (last visited June 15, 2015).
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information on personal transportation and consumption

patterns, and participants receive a personalized list of twenty
carbon-reducing actions.229 The list includes behavior changes
ranging from eating fewer high carbon foods to taking public
transportation.230 The Cooler Smarter campaign also contains
an information guide illustrating the potential large-scale
effects from small-scale GHG emissions reductions, although
the effects of the campaign are unclear.231
Other NGOs promote household carbon reductions through
steps such as disseminating emissions-reducing tips.232
Examples include the Greenpeace Guide to Greener
Electronics, which ranks corporations in the consumer
electronics sector based on their GHG emissions reductions,233
the NRDC Green-e Energy and Green-e Marketplace programs,
which provide independent third-party verification of
companies that utilize renewable energy technology,234 and the
Environmental Working Groups Meat Eaters Guide to
Climate Change and Health, which provides individuals with
food carbon footprints.235 NRDC, along with the U.S. Green
Building Council (USGBC), a private, non-profit organization,
publishes a guide about a private certification system for
energy efficient homes.236
229.
230.
231.
232.
Id.
Id.
Id.
How to Reduce Your Energy Consumption, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE
COUNCIL, http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/genergy.asp [http://perma.cc/4JJU-8M3A]
(last visited June 15, 2015). The NRDC also publishes an Energy Efficiency guide,
which encourages individuals to look for Energy Star labeled home appliances and
choose appliances that utilize natural gas over electricity. Efficient Appliances Save
Energyand Money, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, http://www.nrdc.org/
air/energy/fappl.asp [http://perma.cc/373P-RRGE] (last visited Apr. 22, 2015).
233. GREENPEACE, GUIDE TO GREENER ELECTRONICS (2012), available at
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/201
2/GuideGreenerElectronics/Guide-Ranking-Criteria-v18.pdf
[http://perma.cc/AB4KWXWZ].
234. Green-e National Standards and Governing Documents, GREEN-E, http://www.
green-e.org/getcert_re_stan.shtml [http://perma.cc/7TPF-W9HL] (last visited June 15,
2015).
235. Meat Eaters Guide to Climate Change and Health, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING
GROUP,
http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/helpful-tips-for-meat-eaters/
[http://
perma.cc/CXP4-YRBN] (last visited June 15, 2015).
236. See NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, A CITIZENS GUIDE TO LEED FOR
NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT: HOW TO TELL IF DEVELOPMENT IS SMART AND GREEN
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NGOs also have used social media campaigns and community

based initiatives to engage citizens in small energy-saving
actions that may result in large-scale GHG emissions
reductions. The MomentUs effort of ecoAmerica, an NGO,
draws on a sophisticated understanding of marketing
techniques to promote individual behavior change.237 Various
community-based campaigns also have been popular in the
U.S. and Europe, including Carbon Rationing Action Groups
(CRAGs), Green Streets, and EcoTeams.238 Some of these
community-based initiatives claim to have produced a twenty
percent average reduction in carbon emissions and energy use
within one year, but additional research is needed to verify
these claims and to understand the extent to which they persist
in future years.239
Major environmental groups and automakers also have
developed a joint effort to shift driving behavior to improve fuel
economy and reduce carbon emissions.240 This eco-driving
effort provides information on how drivers can reduce fuel
consumption by taking easy steps, including limiting sudden
braking and acceleration, maintaining consistent driving
2, available at https://www.nrdc.org/cities/smartgrowth/files/citizens_guide_LEEDND.pdf [https://perma.cc/D97T-GH6C] (last visited June 15, 2015). The publication
provides households with information on community features that reduce GHG
emissions, including walk-able streets and others. Id. at 3.
237. See ECOAMERICA, http://ecoamerica.org/ [http://perma.cc/V5FB-D7XL] (last
visited June 15 2015). The MomentUs overview document includes a national
campaign to to build a values majority of support among Americans for effective action
on climate that leads to national, state, and local institutional, individual, and public
policy action. See ECOAMERICA, MOMENTUS DESIGN DOCUMENT, available at http://
ecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/reports/MomentUs_overview.pdf [http://perma.cc/
ERH2-EEVL] (last visited June 15, 2015).
238. EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY, ACHIEVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY
THROUGH BEHAVIOR CHANGE: WHAT DOES IT TAKE? 2425 (2013).
239. Id.
240. See Jack N. Barkenbus, Eco-Driving:
An Overlooked Climate Change
Initiative, 38 ENERGY POLY 762, 765 (2010). A number of national and state
governments also have developed eco-driving programs.
See Thomas D.
Wuertenberger, The Regulation of CO2 Emissions Caused by Private Households, 16
MO. ENVTL. L. & POLY REV. 1, 45 (2009); SUSAN A. SHAHEEN ET AL., MINETA TRANSP.
INST., ECODRIVING AND CARBON FOOTPRINTING: UNDERSTANDING HOW PUBLIC
EDUCATION CAN REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND FULE USE 9 (2012),
available at http://transweb.sjsu.edu/PDFs/research/2808-ecodriving-greenhouse-gasemissions-fuel-use-public-education.pdf [http://perma.cc/T3CB-QNXR].
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speeds, and removing excess weight from vehicles.241

Preliminary research suggests that drivers who adopt ecodriving practices are able to reduce fuel consumption by up to
fifteen percent.242 As with many of these programs, only
limited research has been done to date, but one analysis of ecodriving programs suggests that adoption of those practices on a
national basis could lower annual CO2 emissions by 100 million
tons and result in annual household savings of $214428.243
Although the actions included in the behavioral wedge
approach are among the most promising options, many other
opportunities exist. For example, several of the eco-driving
practices discussed above were included in the behavioral
wedge approach, but many were not. Expansion of eco-driving
programs thus could yield results beyond those already
included in the behavioral wedge emissions reduction estimate.
The importance of behavioral wedge initiatives is easy to
miss. Although behavioral initiatives are becoming more
common, they are not yet a central feature of NGOs or
corporations climate activities. NGOs have not made a
systematic effort to identify and pursue the most promising
behavioral opportunities or to assess and compile the results of
existing programs. The lack of information makes it difficult to
understand the opportunity, but this is a weakness in thinking
about climate governance, not an indication that these
programs should not be a core part of a climate strategy. The
discussion below identifies additional ways to stimulate
emissions reductions from the behavioral wedge actions and
from other household opportunities.
ii. Myth Busting
One example of an under-explored category of opportunities
in the household sector is myth bustingareas where incorrect
241. See THE AUTO ALLIANCE, THE ECODRIVERS MANUAL 3 (2008),
http://www.fs.fed.us/sustainableoperations/documents/TheEcoDriversManual.pdf
[http://perma.cc/2K3Y-B9FU].
242. Id. at 23. Many corporate climate programs also include eco-driving for
trucks and other vehicles. See Ronald Killian, Ecodriving: The Science and Art of
Smarter Driving, 281 TRANSP. RES. MAG. 34, 38 (2012), avaliable at http://online
pubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews281ecodriving.pdf
[http://perma.cc/QER9JVAW].
243. Barkenbus, supra note 240, at 764.
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beliefs induce individuals to act in ways that are not in their

interest and that generate large carbon emissions. Behavior
change often requires sophisticated techniques, but mythdriven behaviors should be more amenable to change than
many other behaviors because they do not require an
individual to act altruistically, just to update beliefs and stop
acting against his or her own interests.244 Many types of mythbusting opportunities exist, but two serve as initial examples:
motor vehicle idling and hot water hand-washing.245 The
technical potential for idling interventions is large: motor
vehicle idling accounts for roughly one percent of U.S. CO2
emissions.246 Behavioral plasticity may be high as well. A
recent empirical study indicates that most people believe that
they should idle their cars for more than three minutes rather
than turn them off if their goal is to save money or reduce
emissions, when the actual time is ten to thirty seconds.247
This idling myth can be attacked with information efforts
(public information campaigns and targeted information
provided in car manuals, on dashboard displays, or at drivethrough lines and other locations where idling is common) and
does not depend upon altruism or climate concern.248 Even if
idling in traffic is set aside so that only unnecessary idling
during motor vehicle start-up and waiting is included in the
analysis, the opportunity for a private governance initiative is
large. If individuals can be induced to act consistent with
updated beliefs, the savings could be in the range of 16 million
tons of CO2 and almost $6 billion dollars.249 This is an amount
equal to the combined emissions from the U.S. soda ash,
244. See, e.g., Julia B. Corbett, Altruism, Self-Interest and the Reasonable Person, 26
SCI. COMM. 368, available at http://site.iugaza.edu.ps/tissa/files/2010/02/Altruism,_SelfInterest,_and_the_Reasonable_Person_Model_of_Environmentally_Responsible_Behavi
or.pdf [http://perma.cc/YFB6-CH47] (finding that the single biggest predictor of the
behavior in question (walking instead of driving) was self-interest about air pollution).
The finding is based on a model by Kaplan. Stephen Kaplan, Human Nature and
Environmentally Responsible Behavior, 56 J. SOC. ISSUES 491 (2000).
245. See, e.g., Attari et al., supra note 104, at 16055 (noting that individuals
underestimate the energy use of clothes driers by a factor of forty).
246. See Carrico et al., supra note 101, at 2881.
247. Id.
248. Anti-idling efforts have been included in a leading eco-driving program. See
THE AUTO ALLIANCE, supra note 241, at 5.
249. Carrico et al., supra note 101, at 2884. Habits are a barrier that will need to be
overcome in some cases. See Bell & Weber, supra note 138.
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aluminum, and limestone industries (all of which are among

highest-emitting industrial sectors). Recent anti-idling efforts
provide models to enable prompt development of large-scale
anti-idling initiatives.250
Similarly, many individuals hold a myth that the use of
warm or hot (not just comfortable) water during hand washing
is more effective at reducing disease transmission than
comfortable water.251 Individuals who hold this myth tend to
use hot or warm water more often when washing hands, and
many businesses require employees to wash hands with hot or
warm water. This myth has important effects: more than 8
billion hand washes occur annually in the U.S., and households
and businesses emit roughly 6 million tons of CO2 annually to
heat water for hand washing.252 Heating this water wastes
millions of dollars. Although some water heating is necessary
to achieve comfortable temperatures, an estimate of the
reasonably achievable reduction in the U.S. is one million tons
of CO2. This is an amount equal to all of the emissions from
the U.S. lead and zinc industry. Information campaigns
targeted at water users, building owners and private building
standards programs could be developed and implemented
quickly and at low cost.253
iii. Home Energy Disclosure
A related target of opportunity is home energy disclosure. As
opposed to the misinformation or myths that idling and handwashing programs address, home energy disclosure initiatives
often address a lack of information about energy use. The focus
in this discussion is on buyers of residential properties, but
comparable issues arise with rental properties. Information
about home energy use could drive a wide range of emissions
reduction activities, including some that already are included
250. See Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan Gilligan & Jack Barkenbus, Climate
Change: The Low-Hanging Fruit, 55 UCLA L. REV. 701 (2008).
251. Amanda R. Carrico et al., The Environmental Cost of Misinformation: Why the
Recommendation to Use Warm Water for Handwashing is Problematic, 37 INTL J. OF
CONSUMER STUD. 433 (2013).
252. Id. at 436 (expressing results as over 6 million tons of CO2e, but as Table 4
shows, non-CO2 emissions are trivial (less than one percent) so there are more than 6
million tons of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion).
253. Id. at 435.
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in the behavioral wedge approach (e.g., purchase of efficient

heating and cooling systems) and others that are not (e.g.,
installation of geothermal or solar systems).
Although
numerous government and private home energy auditing
programs are available, far less than half of all homes have
been audited and many homes have not adopted basic
efficiency upgrades, suggesting that the technical potential for
home energy efficiency initiatives is high. The behavioral
plasticity for many home energy efficiency investments is also
high. Many investments in home heating and cooling systems
and appliances have positive returns, and studies suggest that
high scores in home energy rating systems correlate with
higher home values.254
Interventions may need to overcome behavioral failures such
as steep discount rates, as well as market failures such as the
split incentives between renters and landlords and the quick
turnover times for many owners of residential properties.
State-of-the-art information programs can be designed to
address these failures and drive many types of home energy
efficiency actions. The challenge is to identify programs that
can be can be scaled up to make major reductions and can be
implemented quickly and cheaply. Voluntary government
programs have improved home energy disclosure in recent
years,255 but expansion of many government programs may be
subject to the pervasive government gridlock.
Recent efforts by private organizations have demonstrated
how private institutions can bypass government gridlock
regarding home efficiency.
For example, programs have
encouraged sellers of new and existing homes to post home
energy efficiency data in widely-used home multiple listing
services (MLS).256
Most of the 850-plus regional MLS
254. See Sharon Shewmake & W. Kip Viscusi, Producer and Consumer Responses to
Green Housing Labels (Vanderbuilt University Law School Law and Economics
Research Paper No. 1419, 2014) (evaluating home rating system in Austin, Texas).
255. The Energy Star program is an example. NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE
COUNCIL, UNLOCKING THE VALUE OF AN ENERGY EFFICIENCY HOME: A BLUEPRINT TO
MAKE ENERGY EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS VISIBLE IN THE REAL ESTATE MARKET 10
(2013), available at http://www.elevateenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/Unlocking_the_
Value_of_an_Energy_Efficient_Home_FINAL.pdf [http://perma.cc/79XQ-KWVX].
256. See
Value
for
High
Performance
Homes,
ELEVATE
ENERGY
http://www.elevateenergy.org/value-high-performance-homes/ [http://perma.cc/LGE9KUPY] (last visited Apr. 22, 2015). The MLS facilitates the majority of real estate
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287
databases within the United States do not include energy or

carbon data in property listings,257 but organizations including
the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the Appraisal
Institute, the National Association of Home Builders, Elevate
Energy, the National Home Performance Council, and USGBC
have initiatives underway to add energy efficiency data to the
MLS.258 Thus far, over 125 MLS systems have implemented
green data entry fields to increase realtor access to green
property data.259 The inclusion of green data in the MLS
should allow for more accurate assessments of property values
and facilitate consumer interest in efficiency in the real estate
market.260
Another example is the formation of private standards and
certification programs to reward efficient homes.261 Home
transactions within the United States. NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE COUNCIL,

supra note 255, at 6.
257. NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE COUNCIL, supra note 255, at 6.
258. See, e.g., Appraisal Institute Praises Green Multiple Listing Service Tool Kit,
THE APPRAISAL INSTITUTE (April 21, 2010), http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/
appraisal-institute-praises-green-multiple-listing-service-tool-kit/
[http://perma.cc/
UEZ9-FVFP]; JOHN STOVALL, ET AL., NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE COUNCIL,
UNLOCKING THE FULL VALUE OF GREEN HOMES: WHY GREEN MULTIPLE LISTING
SERVICES ARE THE KEY TO RESIDENTIAL ENERGY EFFICIENCY 3 (2011), available at
http://www.nhenergycode.com/live/code_docs/Green%20MLS%20White%20Paper.pdf
[http://perma.cc/HD2W-6PYZ]; NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS, GREEN MLS
IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE 1, 3 (2014), http://greenresourcecouncil.org/sites/default/
files/2014%20NAR%20Green%20MLS%20Implementation%20Guide.pdf [http://perma
.cc/KR2J-6YBP]; see also HIGHLIGHT GREEN HOMES, U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL 1
(2012), available at http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/Archive/General/Docs10917.pdf [http://
perma.cc/284H-AWZY].
259. As of January 2012, almost ten percent of MLS databases included
environmental listings, with dozens more in transition. HIGHLIGHT GREEN HOMES,
supra note 258.
260. NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE COUNCIL, supra note 255, at 25. The Green
MLS Implementation Guide recommends that MLS systems distinguish green features
within seven categories (e.g., energy efficiency, water conservation). NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS, supra, note 258, at 30. Although many of these categories
will lead to lower carbon emissions, it may be important for private climate initiatives
to develop disclosure methods that give primacy to energy or carbon to ensure that
buildings are not awarded a high score unless they have low carbon emissions. This
would avoid a situation in which a building might receive a high overall score because
of factors such as indoor air quality, but may have a large carbon footprint.
261. For example, standards developed by the Real Estate Standards Organization
(RESO) and the Building Performance Institute (BPI) would allow for verification of
green data to maintain the accuracy and integrity of green property listings. See
NATIONAL HOME PERFORMANCE COUNCIL, supra note 255, at 15.
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certification under the USGBCs LEED for Homes program

provides verification of a propertys potential energy efficiency
and estimated cost savings for potential homebuyers.262
Standardized labeling and certification programs can provide
information to realtors and homebuyers unfamiliar with energy
efficient features, but these programs are not yet available for
many homes. Certification systems have often focused on
rewarding high-performance new homes, but new homes
represent a small share of the housing inventory in any given
year, and only a small subset of homes will qualify for a green
certification.263 As a result, a simple disclosure in MLS
rankings of the energy efficiency of each listed home, whether
new or existing, and whether high performing or not, might
reach many more homes.264 By creating widespread market
incentives to invest in energy efficient equipment and use
existing equipment more efficiently, home energy disclosure
initiatives have the potential to reach households at large scale
and to yield prompt, large emissions reductions.265
iv. Immediate Feedback
The home energy disclosure programs discussed above reduce
carbon emissions principally by creating incentives for sellers
of new and existing homes to invest in energy efficiency
262. See Guide to Certification:
Homes, USGBC, http://www.usgbc.org/certguide/homes [http://perma.cc/5XW8-JLSY] (last visited Apr. 22, 2015).
263. Roughly twenty percent of newly constructed homes are green projects, and
green homes tend to sell for five to ten percent more than traditional homes. NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS, supra note 258, at 72.
264. Energy efficiency performance scores focus on two main types: asset and
operational. ENERGY TRUST OF OREGON, INC., HOME ENERGY PERFORMANCE SCORES:
EFFORTS TO DATE WITH MODELING TOOL COMPARISON AND SUMMARY OF KEY ISSUES 3
(2012),
available
at
http://energytrust.org/About/PDF/Jan23EPSReport.pdf
[http://perma.cc/6C3V-4C47].
265. For instance, looking only at manufactured homes (often called mobile
homes) energy-use labeling could reveal opportunities to save money on energy bills
and reduce emissions. A typical manufactured home could achieve net savings of $279
per year (accounting for the cost of energy-efficient construction), with total national
net savings of $1.7 billion dollars per year and a reduction of 23 million tons per year of
CO2 if all buyers of new and used manufactured homes took advantage of energy
efficiency measures that produced net savings. See JACOB TALBOT, MOBILIZING
ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN THE MANUFACTURED HOUSING SECTOR, AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR
AN ENERGY EFFICIENT ECONOMY 1923 (2012), available at http://www.workingre.com/
wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Mobilizing-Energy-Efficiency-in-Manufactured-Housing.
pdf [http://perma.cc/B4MD-D4WJ].
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289
improvements. The programs typically seek to steer behavior

by providing aggregate data from extended periods of time
(e.g., annual or monthly electricity usage).
In contrast,
immediate feedback programs provide information at the time
of use. Homeowners often do not take advantage of energyefficiency measures that could save hundreds of dollars a year,
however, due to the energy-cost myopia phenomenon discussed
above.266
Private climate initiatives could address energy cost myopia
by drawing on a significant body of research on best practices
dating back to the 1970s.267 Public information campaigns that
provide information far from the time of decision often have
limited effects,268 but providing information at the time and at
the locus of an action is more likely to be effective.269 Although
programs that provide monthly feedback (e.g., information in
monthly billing statements) have yielded one to three percent
energy use reductions, efforts that provide immediate feedback
regarding the amount or cost of electricity are also
promising.270 Households with devices that provide occupants
with immediate feedback have been found to reduce energy use
266. See discussion, supra note 216; see also Robert Stavins & Richard Newell,
Evaluating the Energy Efficiency Gap,
DUKE UNIVERSITY ENERGY INITIATIVE,
http://energy.duke.edu/research/efficiency_project [http://perma.cc/6C3S-CTUS] (last
visited Apr. 22, 2015) (describing research project); Michael Levi, Gas Price Worries
and Climate Myopia, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Apr. 28, 2011, http://blogs.cfr.
org/levi/2011/04/28/gas-price-worries-and-climate-myopia/ [http://perma.cc/ZL97-2F8V]
(identifying the problem as a significant obstacle to reducing emissions by pricing
carbon).
267. See, e.g., Stern et al., supra note 135, at 484748 (assessing the potential for
measures that address energy-cost myopia and noting best practices).
268. See Wokje Abrahamse et al., A Review of Intervention Studies Aimed at
Household Energy Conservation, 25 J. ENVTL. PSYCH. 273 (2005).
269. See Andrea H. McMakin et al., Motivating Residents to Conserve Energy
Without Financial Incentives, 34 ENVTL. BEHAV. 848 (2002); John E. Petersen et al.,
Dormitory Residents Reduce Electricity Consumption When Exposed to Real-Time
Visual Feedback and Incentives, 8 INT. J. SUST. HIGH EDUC. 16 (2007); L. McClelland &
S.W. Cook, Energy Conservation Effects of Continuous In-Home Feedback in AllElectric Homes, 9 J. ENVTL. SYS. 169 (1979); ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE
(EPRI), RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY USE FEEDBACK: A RESEARCH SYNTHESIS AND
ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK (2009).
270. See Vandenbergh et al., supra note 106, at 74041 (citing studies).
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by four to twelve percent,271 and the cost of these devices often

can be recouped in a few years or less.
The policy plasticity of these types of private initiatives is
likely to be high because they can address a market failure
involving utility incentives.
Smart meter programs
demonstrate the problem. Utilities have spent millions of
dollars on smart meter campaigns in many regions, and one
might assume that smart meters provide immediate feedback
to the consumer, but they typically do not. The market failure
arises because under current rate structures utilities will profit
if they shift demand to times when electricity is cheaper to
produce, but they will lose revenue if they sell less electricity
overall.272 As a result, most utilities have incentives to shift
the time of electricity use to avoid the high cost of providing
peak power, but they do not have incentives to reduce overall
electricity use. Utilities describe net energy use reduction in
vivid terms, referring to demand destruction or revenue
erosion, and raising concerns about a death spiral.273 Not
surprisingly, smart meters often communicate with the utility
to facilitate shifting demand to times of low-cost generation,
but they typically do not provide immediate, real-time, easy-toaccess information to consumers.274
Although most utilities do not have incentives to promote
immediate feedback devices, private initiatives can do so.
Meters with in-home displays cost in the $100250 range and
provide immediate, easy-to-read information.275 An individual
simply needs to plug in the unit to learn real-time household
electricity usage and to observe changes in electricity use as
appliances, lights, and heating and cooling systems are turned
on and off. A simpler option is a twenty dollar device available
271. See KAREN EHRHARDT-MARTINEZ ET AL., ADVANCED METERING INITIATIVES AND
RESIDENTIAL FEEDBACK PROGRAMS: A META-REVIEW FOR HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITYSAVING OPPORTUNITIES 74 (2010).
272. Michael P. Vandenbergh & Jim Rossi, Good for You, Bad for Us: The Financial
Disincentive for Net Demand Reduction, 65 VAND. L. REV. 1527 (2012).
273. Id. at 1529.
274. Research suggests that interposing even just a few low-cost steps between an
individual and an outcome will substantially reduce participation. See Vandenbergh et
al., supra note 104, at 74041 (citing studies).
275. Tamar Krishnamurti et al., Preparing for Smart Grid Technologies: A
Behavioral Decision Research Approach to Understanding Consumer Expectations
About Smart Meters, 41 ENERGY POLY 790, 79192 (2012).
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291
in many stores that provides real-time data on the electricity

use of particular appliances.276 The device must be plugged in
between the appliance and the socket, but it also provides realtime data of value to a household. By providing data at the
point of decision, initiatives that promote uptake of immediate
feedback devices can enable households to save money and act
on preferences to reduce energy use and carbon emissions.
v. Employee Programs
In addition to NGO-sponsored household initiatives, a new
type of hybrid corporate-household initiative has emerged in
recent years: corporate programs designed to induce employees
to reduce their household emissions. In some cases the
corporation simply provides information, but in others the
corporation provides a subsidy to employees to fund home
improvements or purchases that will lead to more efficient
energy use.
For example, WSP, a for-profit corporation, has developed a
program that companies have used to motivate their employees
to reduce their household carbon footprints. The program is
called PACT: Personal Allowance Carbon Trading.277 The
project allows employees at user companies to cap their yearly
carbon emissions. The employees enter their activities onto a
website that tracks their monthly totals.278 In addition to
calculating the users carbon footprint, PACT also provides tips
on how to reduce carbon emissions and provides discounts for
products from eco-friendly stores.279
If the employees
emissions are below the cap, they receive an annual bonus in
their paycheck. According to the program designer, about
seventy percent of members hit their targets. PACT has over
4,000 members, including nonprofits, governments, and
276. See, e.g., Kill A Watt, P3INTERNATIONAL.COM, http://www.p3international

.com/products/p4400.html [http://perma.cc/G2VV-W3B9] (last visited June 15, 2015)
(noting retail prices).
277. David Symons, PACTMaking Sustainable Living Engaging And Easy For All
(2013), available at http://content.yudu.com/Library/A2kkfg/OurPACTsustainableli/
resources/index.htm [http://perma.cc/WG7G-SF7M] (last visited June 15, 2015).
278. Id. at 7.
279. Id. at 1012 .
292
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companies, and the program can operate in thirty-five

countries.280
In 2007, Swiss Re, a large reinsurance company, launched an
employee program called COYou2.281 The program allows
employees to claim subsidies for investments including electric
cars, public transport passes, energy efficient home appliances,
solar panels, and others. The subsidies cover fifty percent of
the investment costs up to a maximum of 5,000 Swiss
Francs.282 Sony Pictures launched a similar program in 2008
that offers subsidies to employees who purchase a qualifying
hybrid or electric vehicle or install photovoltaic solar panels.283
Other programs have been launched recently by 3M, KimberlyClarke, and other companies.284 Research is needed on the
effects of these programs and corporations motivations for
offering them, but these corporate-household hybrids are a
promising new development.
280. Id. at 1416. WSP reports that members typically reduce their carbon
footprint by ten percent in their first year as a participant in PACT. Id. at 14.
281. Swiss Re launched the program with the help of Off4Firms, which specializes
in designing employee programs, along with South Pole Carbon, and Wageningen
University. See Johannes Manser et al., Accelerating CO2 Emissions Reductions Via
Corporate Programmes 7 (Off4Firms Working Paper D2b.1, 2013), available at http://
www.off4firms.ethz.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Off4Firms-Working-Paper-2b-1.pdf
[http://perma.cc/5XP4-NMAD].
282. Although the first five years only resulted in 4,000 investments, a few minor
adjustments increased the investments to 1,700 in the sixth year of the program. On
the whole, the program has been very popular among employees, although the carbon
emissions reductions are unclear. Id at 17.
283. Sony Pictures Digital Productions Inc., Employee Eco-Incentives, SONY
PICTURES A GREENER WORLD, http://www.sonypictures.com/green/act/employeeinvolvement/employee-incentives.php [http://perma.cc/JE9F-FGRC] (last visited June
15, 2015). Since the inception of the program, Sony claims that over 300 employees
have participated, resulting in savings of over 200,000 gallons of gas and generating
over 500,000 kWh of clean power. Sony offers other incentives to employees who
commit to a greener daily commute, including preferred parking, access to charging
enabled parking spaces, transit pass discounts and secure bike racks. In 2012 Sony
launched a new interactive web-based platform called Practically Green, which
provides small everyday activities employees can undertake to reduce their carbon
footprints. Sony Pictures Digital Productions Inc., Small Acts: Greening Employees
Everyday Actions, SONY PICTURES A GREENER WORLD, http://www.sonypictures.com/
green/act/employee-involvement/commit-acts.php [http://perma.cc/4Y8Y-VQBH] (last
visited June 15, 2015).
284. See Cardwell, supra note 122.
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293
vi. Magnitude
What is the magnitude of the potential emissions reductions
from private governance initiatives directed at households?
The behavioral wedge approach suggests that by 2020 annual
emissions reductions of over 450 million tons of fossil fuel CO2
could be achieved in the U.S. alone.285 Further reductions from
the seventeen behavioral wedge actions could be achieved in
other countries.
In addition, although the initiatives discussed above include
several that would simply implement the behavioral wedge
actions, they also include others that were not included in the
behavioral wedge analysis (e.g., idling myth-busting and the
actions targeted by many employee programs), and these
actions could yield additional emissions reductions over the 450
million ton total. A lack of resources or expertise could lead to
reductions that are less than the 450 million ton estimate for
the U.S., but there are also indications that much greater
reductions could be achieved:
McKinsey estimates that
installing energy-efficient lighting, electronics, and appliances
could reduce household emissions worldwide by more than a
gigaton per year with net savings of more than $30 billion per
year.286 Behavior change in energy use could increase the
savings even more.287 NGOs could undertake a new effort to
expand the number of households targeted by these initiatives
and could include state-of-the-art interventions directed at
actions with the highest technical potential and behavioral
285. See SARA HAYES ET AL., CHANGE IS IN THE AIR: HOW STATES CAN HARNESS
ENERGY EFFICIENCY TO STRENGTHEN THE ECONOMY AND REDUCE POLLUTION (2014),
available at http://aceee.org/research-report/e1401 [http://perma.cc/9Q4V-LHX7].
286. MCKINSEY & CO., supra note 215 at 10709. Home energy efficiency measures
could reduce emissions by 2.4 billion tons per year, twice as much total abatement
opportunity as the commercial segment, and approximately 75% of the total
abatement potential . . . shows net economic benefits, with the remainder available at
very low cost. Id. Combined energy efficiency improvements in commercial and
residential buildings could reduce emissions by 1.6 billion tons per year by 2020 with
net savings of $50 billion. Id. Because 2/3 of the emissions reduction opportunity is in
residential buildings, it seems reasonable to ascribe 2/3 of the projected emissions
reduction and savings to residential buildings: roughly 1.1 billion tons per year
emissions reduction and $34 billion per year net savings. Id.
287. Id. at 108 (noting that [b]ehavioral change from building occupants could
reduce carbon emissions significantly beyond the abatement cost-curve model).
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plasticity.288
The new efforts also could be extended to
additional actions and countries.
Taken together, these considerations suggest that the total
potential annual emissions reductions during the 20162020
period from private governance initiatives directed at
households could easily exceed 500 million tons worldwide and
might even exceed a gigaton. Even the lower end of this range
is roughly equivalent to a regulation that reduced fossil fuel
CO2 emissions from the U.S. industrial sector by two-thirds.
The total is also the equivalent of assembling a second club of
countries (comprising Australia, the U.K., Saudi Arabia, and
Italy, all among the top twenty emitters in the world) that all
commit to a reduction in annual fossil fuel CO2 emissions by an
amount equal to twenty-five percent of 2012 levels.289
C. Aggregate Effects
How significant are the reasonably achievable emissions
reductions when we include both household and corporate
private climate governance? When combined with the 500
million tons available from corporate initiatives, the 500
million tons of household emissions reductions yield roughly a
gigaton of annual emissions reductions. This is roughly
equivalent to a regulatory approach that eliminated all U.S.
industrial CO2 emissions or half of all U.S. CO2 emissions from
electricity generation. It is also equivalent to a club of eight of
the twenty greatest emitters of fossil fuel CO2 (Australia,
Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the
U.K.) reducing their annual emissions by twenty-five percent of
2012 levels.
All of these measures only require taking actions that can be
done easily and cheaply, using readily available commercial
technology. Only conceptual and behavioral inertia and access
to commercial and philanthropic capital stand in the way of
these measures. The cost of borrowing is extremely low around
the world, so inertia appears to be the principal obstacle. Thus,
we believe that effective private governance could achieve rapid
implementation of these measures. They would not represent
288. See infra Part V.C.
289. GLOBAL CARBON BUDGET, supra note 219.
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295
absolute reduction of emissions:

economic growth would
continue to raise global CO2 emissions. But these measures
could slow emissions growth sufficiently to achieve one quarter
of the four gigatons needed to buy a decade.
V. CONCEPTUAL HURDLES
Private governance initiatives face questions not only about
whether they exert significant influence on household and
corporate behavior, but also whether, if they do, most of the
available reductions have already been achieved. In other
words, have all of the opportunities been exploited already,
leaving little room for new initiatives? The answer involves
time. Opportunities for private governance are not achieved
instantaneously. Some types of corporate and household
efficiencies are likely to be achieved over time even without
private governance initiatives. Economists like to say that
there are no twenty dollar bills lying on the sidewalk, and that
may be true over a period of minutes or hours. But for climate
change the speed with which those twenty dollar bills are
picked up mattersevery decade of delay increases costs by
forty percentand private governance can accelerate the
process.290
The other major hurdle is conceptual. Experts not only
downplay concerns about the policy plasticity of a carbon price,
but also over-value comprehensive remedies and assume that
alternatives to a carbon price, such as private governance
initiatives, will have negative spillover effects.
Part V
examines these problems and concludes by identifying concrete
steps that can be taken to implement the private climate
governance strategy.
A. Panacea Bias
A carbon price is attractive to scholars and policymakers not
only because it offers the prospect of low-cost emissions
reductions, but also because it appears to offer a single,
comprehensive response that will solve the climate problem.
The attraction of having one measure that promises a
290. See discussion, supra Part II.A.
296
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comprehensive response to a problem is so compelling that it

can induce experts to treat other strategies as distractions or
competitors.291 This panacea biaspreferring comprehensive
but infeasible responses over piecemeal but feasible
responsesis pervasive, and until recently it discouraged
thinking about complementary or alternative approaches.292
Ostrom suggested that analysts who prefer a single
prescription imposed by unified authorities mistake their
simple models for messy reality, thus missing the diverse
institutional arrangements that operate in practice.293
On a related note, experts and advocates also often succumb
to the one percent problem, dismissing small sources and the
initiatives that address them, even though a large share of all
GHG emissions arises from small contributors.294 For instance,
roughly a third of global emissions arise from the 100-plus
countries that contribute one percent or less of the global total,
and most U.S. industrial sectors can argue that they contribute
far less than one percent of the world total, as well as only
several percent of the U.S. total.295 The rejection of one percent
measures occurs even though the policies and programs
available to address many small sources may be more
politically feasible and more cost-effective than more
comprehensive policies.
Although excluding one percent
sources will produce efficient policies in some situations, the
tendency to dismiss these sources regarding climate change
291. See, e.g., NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 26667 (claiming that alternatives to
carbon pricing . . . are generally more expensive[,] . . . unlikely to achieve ambitious
[emissions reduction] targets[,] . . . [and can be] extremely expensive or even
counterproductive). Some economists have examined the political feasibility of a
carbon price. See, e.g., Joseph E. Aldy & Robert Stavins, The Promise and Problems of
Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience, 21 J. ENVT & DEV. 152 (2012) (evaluating
political feasibility); Guzman, supra note 23, at 228 (noting that [b]y comparison, capand-trade is less potentially toxic than a carbon tax).
292. See Elinor Ostrom, A Diagnostic Approach for Going Beyond Panaceas, 104
PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI. 15181, 15182 (2007); Gilligan & Vandenbergh, supra note 24,
at 6.
293. OSTROM, supra note 4, at 2123.
294. Kevin A. Stack & Michael P. Vandenbergh, The One Percent Problem, 111
COLUM. L. REV. 1385, 1401 (2011).
295. Id.
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297
feeds opposition to second-best approaches by scholars and

policymakers.296
B. Spillover Bias
A second conceptual hurdle is linked to the panacea bias: if
comprehensive solutions are favored, it is easy to fall into the
trap of assuming that other options will delay or block adoption
of the desired response. Statements to this effect are common
in media accounts297 and popular books.298 This view is a
barrier to pursuit of private governance initiatives and other
mitigation options that are perceived to compete with a carbon
price.
Although the term spillover is used in many ways, it can
refer to the effects of a first behavior on the likelihood or extent
of a second behavior.299 The second behavior can be one that
has direct effects on carbon emissions, such as driving or use of
an appliance, or it can involve policy views and support, such
as support for a carbon tax or cap-and-trade legislation. A
296. For example, in the leading Supreme Court decision on climate change, Chief
Justice Robertss dissent dismissed the U.S. motor vehicle fleets contribution to global
carbon emissions because the fleet only contributes six percent of global CO2 emissions
and four percent of GHGs, and the rules in question would only reduce a a fraction of
four percent of global GHG emissions. Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 544
(2007) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). If the fuel economy regulation that was at stake in
the case reduces motor vehicle emissions by only twenty-five percent (a conservative
assessment), however, the reduction will be one percent of global emissions, which is
more than the total emissions of over 100 countries. See World Resources Institute,
CAIT Climate Data Explorer, WGI.ORG, http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/caitclimate-data-explorer [http://perma.cc/5NH2-VF4C] (last visited June 15, 2015).
297. John Tierney, When Energy Efficiency Sullies the Environment, N.Y. TIMES,
Mar. 8, 2011, at D1 (stating that there could even be more emissions as a result of
some improvements in energy efficiency and that if your immediate goal is to reduce
greenhouse emissions, then it seems risky to count on reaching it by improving energy
efficiency. To economists worried about rebound effects, it makes more sense to look
for new carbon-free sources of energy, or to impose a direct penalty for emissions, like a
tax on energy generated from fossil fuels); Gernot Wagner, Going Green but Getting
Nowhere, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 8, 2011, at A29 (arguing that [t]he changes necessary are
so large and profound that they are beyond the reach of individual action).
298. GERNOT WAGNER, BUT WILL THE PLANET NOTICE? HOW SMART ECONOMICS
CAN SAVE THE WORLD 67 (2011) (concluding that [a]ll these steps may well be
counterproductive); NORDHAUS, supra note 22, at 27273 (arguing that alternatives
to carbon pricing . . . [are] extremely expensive or even counterproductive).
299. See Heather Barnes Truelove et al., Positive and Negative Spillover of ProEnvironmental Behavior: An Integrative Review and Theoretical Framework, 29
GLOBAL ENVTL. CHANGE 127, 12832 (2014).
298
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commonly discussed form of spillover regarding energy is called

the rebound effect. Economists note that the energy savings
from using a more efficient car or appliance can lead an
individual to use the item more or to buy other items, reducing
the efficiency benefits of the first item. Rebound is a genuine
concern, and rebound effects should be accounted for in
assessments of private governance initiatives. In an extreme
form rebound can become backfire, in which the additional
energy use exceeds the initial savings.300 A recent analysis
concluded, however, that backfire is rare, and that direct
rebound effects typically erode only five to ten percent of the
gains from efficiency initiatives.301
The spillover assumption that poses the greatest challenge to
private governance initiatives and other second-best options
can be thought of as policy spillover. Negative policy spillover
occurs if the pursuit of one policy adversely effects the
likelihood of a second policy. As with behavioral spillover,
policy spillover is a genuine concern. If resources are diverted
from advocacy efforts for a carbon price to other climate
initiatives, this could slow the adoption of a carbon price.
Negative spillover also could occur if pursuit of other initiatives
induces the public or experts to believe that the problem has
been solved, leading to reduced support for a carbon price.
Psychologist Elke Weber has noted that farmers who take
climate mitigation steps exhibit what she calls a single action
bias:
they become less supportive of climate mitigation
policies, even though the likelihood of climate effects did not
change because of their actions.302
To serve as a valuable gap-filler, private governance
initiatives must not reduce the likelihood of a more effective
300. See, e.g., Michael Schellenberger & Ted Nordhaus, The Problem with Energy
Efficiency, NY TIMES, Oct. 9, 2014, at A35 (stating that energy saving technologies
may backfire [because] higher efficiency may in fact result in higher energy
consumption); JESSE JENKINS ET AL., BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE, ENERGY
EMERGENCE: REBOUND AND BACKFIRE AS EMERGENT PHENOMENA (2011).
301. See Kenneth Gillingham et al., The Rebound Effect Is Overplayed, 493 NATURE
475, 476 (2013) (concluding that rebound effects are small and are therefore no excuse
for inaction). Negative spillover can also occur at a macroeconomic level. See id. at
476.
302. Elke U. Weber, Perception and Expectation of Climate Change: Precondition
for Economic and Technological Adaptation, in PSYCHOL. PERSP. TO ENVTL. & ETHICAL
ISSUES IN MGMT 314, 341 (M.H Bazerman et al., eds. 1997).
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299
government action and must complement, or at least not

interfere with, public climate measures. Although negative
spillover effects are possible, the risk of displacing major
federal or international climate initiatives is low. National and
international carbon pricing initiatives face the barriers
discussed in Part II.
Although government household
efficiency might appear on the surface to be an area where
federal legislation is possible, political barriers limit household
opportunities at the federal level to a surprising extent. Even
seemingly non-controversial, bipartisan energy efficiency
legislation has bogged down in Congress, suggesting that there
is limited appetite for legislation that would support these
types of efforts.303 Government behavioral approaches that
might be attractive on the surface to moderates, conservatives,
and libertarians have not been embraced when initiated by
governments, but instead have been criticized as mind
control.304
As a result, although advocacy efforts that promote viable
government measures are often worth pursuing, it is unclear
whether negative policy spillover effects will arise from redirecting a portion of advocacy resources toward private
initiatives. Funding for public and private climate initiatives
also may not be a zero-sum game.
Private governance
initiatives may attract new funding and new participants to
the climate mitigation effort, rather than competing for
existing resources. Positive spillover effects also could arise
from private initiatives if they create new constituencies that
support climate mitigation, lower the anticipated costs of a
carbon price to companies and households, or reduce the size of
the carbon price needed to achieve an emissions target. In
short, the consideration of spillover effects becomes a spillover
bias when advocates of a carbon price focus only on negative
effects and do not also weigh the likelihood and extent of
positive spillover effects. Consideration of spillover effects is
critical to development of a rational response to climate
change, but it is important to avoid spillover bias, which can
lead to an unthinking rejection of potentially viable
complements or alternatives.
303. See Juliano, supra note 96.
300
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C. Concrete Steps
The principal assertion of this Article is that a conceptual
shift should occur among scholars, philanthropists, and
business and NGO managers regarding the role of private
climate governance over the next decade. This conceptual shift
has the potential to galvanize support for existing private
governance initiatives and lead to the formation of new
initiatives.
Although the examples discussed above
demonstrate the extent of current private climate initiatives
and identify new initiatives, it is fair to ask whether additional
concrete steps can be taken to implement a private climate
governance strategy.
One option is to form a new NGO or endowment that could
implement or fund specific new initiatives such as the
prediction market and legacy registry.305 The new organization
also could promote other cross-cutting initiatives, such as
collecting and disclosing the total emissions reductions
achieved from private climate governance efforts each year at
the U.S. and global levels.306 The tracking and disclosure of
emissions reductions attributable to private governance may be
necessary to demonstrate the efficacy of the strategy and reveal
the level of additional effort needed.307 Although it is tempting
to suggest that formation of a new organization is the best way
to promote a coherent, effective private climate governance
strategy, it is not clear that the benefits of a new organization
would exceed the costs of forming and staffing yet another
NGO. Any of the leading NGOs, or a cooperative effort among
them, could take on this role. Whether the organizational form
305. Government can act in a number of ways to enhance, or at least avoid

undermining, the private climate governance strategy. Recent efforts to make
government data available to the public on corporate emissions, climate science, and
other topics may facilitate the development of private climate governance initiatives.
See WHITE HOUSE, The Presidents Climate Data Initiative: Empowering Americas
Communities to Prepare for the Effects of Climate Change, Mar. 19, 2014, available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/19/fact-sheet-president-s-climatedata-initiative-empowering-america-s-comm [http://perma.cc/XPT9-NKL6].
306. Note the importance of accounting for the gains from bottom-up approaches.
Stewart et al., supra note 93, at 27374.
307. An annual quantification of the emissions reductions attributable to private
initiatives might reward participants and increase the sense of efficacy that NGOs,
corporations, and individuals have when undertaking these efforts.
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301
is a new NGO, an endowment, or a new alliance among

existing NGOs and corporations, however, in the absence of
some type of driving force, the opportunity may melt into the
large number of other climate efforts that square more neatly
with existing institutional arrangements and conventional
views of governance.
Another potential concrete step would be simply to increase
the resources directed toward evaluating and documenting the
effects of existing private carbon emissions reduction
initiatives. An effort that documents these reductions and
estimates the potential for new efforts may attract new
resources from those who already support climate mitigation.
In addition, moderates, conservatives, and libertarians who
have been hesitant to support government climate mitigation
may be willing to add new resources and advocacy if the
activity includes private governance and if the effort can be
demonstrated to have a substantial effect on emissions.308 For
some initiatives, new resources could be invested directly in
emissions reduction programs and hardware (e.g., home energy
feedback devices), bypassing the transaction costs and other
concerns that can arise with advocacy campaigns.
Perhaps most important, shifting the question from what
can government do? to what can any institution do?, and
shifting the goal from solving the climate problem to buying a
decade, can lead to additional fresh thinking about climate
mitigation in many sectors. Despite the exhaustive list of
private governance initiatives reviewed in this Article, many
more exist, including commodity roundtables, additional
standards and certification efforts or modifications to existing
efforts to prioritize carbon reductions, programs that reduce
emissions from fracking,309 efforts that target default
308. See Vandenbergh & Steinemann, supra note 14, at 171416 (noting that
conservatives may respond to campaigns that emphasize personal responsibility for
emissions reductions).
309. See Amanda C. Leiter, Fracking, Federalism and Private Governance, 38 HARV.
ENVTL. L. REV. (forthcoming 2014); David A. Dana & Hannah J. Wiseman, A Market
Approach to Regulating the Energy Revolution: Assurance Bonds, Insurance, and the
Certain and Uncertain Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing, 99 IOWA L. REV. 1523 (2014);
Thomas W. Merrill & David M. Schizer, The Shale Oil and Gas Revolution, Hydraulic
Fracturing, and Water Contamination: A Regulatory Strategy, 98 MINN. L. REV. 145
(2013).
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[Vol. 40:2
settings,310 additional myth-busting efforts, and re-direction of

recycling campaigns to focus on those areas that have the
greatest effect on carbon emissions, such as aluminum
recycling. Additional institutional targets also exist, such as
the large number of private organizations that emit substantial
amounts of carbon but are neither households nor corporations,
including universities, hospitals, religious organizations, and
charitable
organizations.311
Additional
institutional
participants also exist, including the insurance industry,
private offset markets, and others.312
VI. CONCLUSION
A carbon price is widely regarded as the optimal response to
climate change, but a national and international carbon price is
unlikely to be adopted and implemented in the next decade.
Executive branch efforts that target power plants and motor
vehicles will reduce emissions in the U.S. in the near term, as
will efforts by state, local, and foreign governments. These
efforts are important, but they will fall far short of the levels
necessary to reduce the likelihood of the most damaging
aspects of climate change.
This Article argues that private climate governance
initiatives can bypass government gridlock and buy time for
the development of the political support necessary for adoption
and implementation of a carbon price. Numerous examples
demonstrate that private initiatives are already reducing
emissions from corporations, households and other sources. In
addition, substantial new opportunities for emissions
reductions have not been exploited.
The private governance approach developed in this Article
starts with a conceptual shift: private initiatives can drive a
large share of new emissions reductions.
Although
310. See Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch, Automatically Green: Behavioral
Economics and Environmental Protection, 38 HARV. ENVTL. L. REV. 127 (2014).
311. For example, annual university sustainability rankings could give primacy to
net annual carbon emissions. Under current methodologies, a university may be able
to score well even if its annual carbon emissions increase.
312. See, e.g., Michael P. Vandenbergh et al., Micro-Offsets and MacroTransformation: An Inconvenient View of Climate Change Justice, 33 HARV. ENVTL. L.
REV. 303, 31048 (2009) (proposing carbon micro-offset markets).
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303
governments are in gridlock, private governance initiatives can

address public perceptions of climate science and motivations
to reduce emissions, and can stimulate prompt, low-cost
emissions reductions from corporations and households. In
fact, reductions in the range of a gigaton per year, roughly a
quarter of what is needed to buy a decade, are possible. The
private climate governance strategy developed in this Article is
not a substitute for a national and international carbon price,
but it can generate significant emissions reductions until more
complete responses become possible.

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ii. Carbon Disclosure ....................................................... 262

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of GHG emissions reductions from its suppliers around the

3. See Michael P. Vandenbergh, Private Environmental Governance, 99 CORNELL L.

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and courts.6 In the last two decades, an extensive literature

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governmental organization (NGO) conducts a campaign to

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household or corporate behavior change occurred) and

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motivate them to do so,17 and by 2020 behavioral initiatives

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mitigation, policy plasticity is the extent to which an

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trade, extending pressure for climate mitigation across

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decade.30 The discussion of existing efforts is exhaustive

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mitigation measures that will take many years to adopt and

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support can be mobilized and the fairness of each countrys

38. Gilligan & Vandenbergh, supra note 24, at 8.

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low probability, high consequence climate events.43 Climate

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target. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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technology before then. Thus, a limited window exists for

Figure 1. Emissions Reductions Wedge 20162025 (million metric tons of CO2)

The IEA also publishes a projection of the global emissions

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fuel consumption. We omit other greenhouse gas emissions

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account for roughly seventy percent of global CO2 emissions,

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faced by other proposed pollution control statutes, and

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advocates for a government response confront not only

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the same: limited prospects for an international agreement

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of the U.N. process, and an agreement with credible

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address collective action problems, such as managing common

This approach rejects the idea that waiting for a